I am interested in a different perception of space and objects that occur empirically and intuitively, leaving space for a more complex discovery. I like to observe those subtle threads that connect space to poetry, that link architecture to art. My aim is to create connections between different disciplines by materializing words in space or objects. I prefer to put the concept before the form, which is nothing more than the spontaneous representation of a well-done gesture, a well-articulated thought
Interstices - I just used a piece of honeycomb cardboard and I began to dig in his structure without a precise path. It's interesting to see how the same object can open to different possibilities. The resultant drawings are always different from each other: the space inside the cardboard is described by infinite and different flat representation.
The king of gaps - I tried to represent the space inherent the matter. I am fascinated by the interstitial properties of objects, which can offer us new and unexplored spatial realities. A sort of return journey within the solidity of the elements. Those realities impossible to perceive, beyond physics and nature, but that exist and persist. The beauty of not declared things. I took inspiration from a poem by Fernando Pessoa. It is interesting to observe how different disciplines can overlap and merge each other and this is what I tried to do, describing space with poetry (or poetry with space). Through a personal method of investigation, the aim was to be able to identify hidden spatial realities. Hidden not to the human eye, which nowadays can explore everything, but to his sensory perception. Large & small, void & solid, that what exists & that what does not exist are described at the same time. This viewing of inner spatial qualities is translated in the first example through an expressive (as opposed to descriptive) method of casting and ‘model making’.
Embodied materiality - For a long time, the pursuit of ageless perfection has played a leading role in art and design resulting in a lack of consideration of the material’s own being. The formal language has notably shifted to a space dominated by smooth and perfect surfaces. Such impenetrable surfaces make it easy to forget that the materials that constitute them are kinetic and that they are capable of containing their own will and tactile essence.
Dig or excavate, from the Latin word excavare (ex-cavare), etymologically possesses the meaning of make hollow through the action of subtraction. The excavation technique is a proceed by subtraction of volumes, a negative operation by removing material, eroding, digging and extracting. It represents, rather than a constructive modality, a precise theoretical attitude, a recurrence to the essence of things, since the excavation implies purity of form.
Subtraction versus redundancy. The search for expressive laconism prevails over the excess of designed elements. Gestures and procedures are brought back to their essentiality as an attempt to recover an experience, an ancestral memory of an original time, in respect of what matter can offer.
Monolith #3 - The Monoliths are extremely long-lived and reliable machines, able to survive for millions of years buried in the ground or resisting meteorite impacts and radiation in space with no apparent damage. They observe the surroundings before the concept of time itself.
Monolith #1 - The Monoliths are extremely long-lived and reliable machines, able to survive for millions of years buried in the ground or resisting meteorite impacts and radiation in space with no apparent damage. They observe the surroundings before the concept of time itself.
Monolith #2 - The Monoliths are extremely long-lived and reliable machines, able to survive for millions of years buried in the ground or resisting meteorite impacts and radiation in space with no apparent damage. They observe the surroundings before the concept of time itself.
Waddeneilanden altaaren - Waddeneilanden altaaren is a series of altars spread around the intertidal zone of the Wadden Sea, which stretches along the southeastern coast of the North Sea from the Netherlands to Denmark. This area has a total length of some 500 kilometres and a total area of about 10,000 kilometres squared. Its landscape, shaped by flux and characterized by a multitude of transitional zones between land and sea, is very suggestive. Completely immersed in nature, this area does not have any particular reference points and it is difficult to find a great number of images of the surrounding landscape.
Google intends to map all the places around us, even if there are a lot of areas difficult to reach by their cameras. For this reason, the company is forced to ask people’s contribution to keep Street View imagery updated. To achieve such a thing, Google offers a tool that allows users to create or import 360 photos in the Street View app. These pictures will appear on the map, where other users can see them.
The uploaded 360 images are created by “overlapping” different portions of space. Sometimes, this operation may leave areas uncovered, resulting in black shapes within the three-dimensional photographic space. Moreover, it is worth noting how these portions of void have a physical presence in the surroundings, that is, shapes out of emptiness described by fullness.
For these altars, I decided to create a solid geometry starting from these black shapes. The selected locations are all the spots photographed by users which may present these kinds of digital refuses. These altars made of blocks of various types of stones are meant to conceive a line of new reference points. They mark the surrounding at the same time that they represent the earth and the sea colliding
Monumenting - A monument can be a statue, building, or other structure erected to commemorate a notable person, event or concept. The times are changing as are the ideals, which makes it necessary to re-evaluate the role of a monuments today.
Monuments are critical tools in shaping the values and identity of society. Most of what we know about many ancient cultures are through public monuments. The social meanings of monuments are rarely fixed and certain and are frequently contested by different social groups.
What would a Monument to all people look like? What would it represent? In this time of fundamental social change, what is the role of the monument, both as a creature of that change, and perhaps also as an agent of change? Can a monument become more inclusive?
Monumenting emphasises diversification and meaning of opposition to the characteristics of visibility and expressiveness of monumental art. My counter-monument aims to detach itself from the classical conventions of sculpture and memorial architecture. It favours progressive and procedural instances over the rhetorical celebration.
In the collective imagination monuments are made of a solid and immovable structure that lasts over time, but in this case the work consists of a cube, a hidden and impassable interior space which is made out the common scaffolding. This system is normally used by construction workers.
Inside, there is an undetermined object that can only be glimpsed from the outside through the two thick building sheets. Scaffolding is a temporary system which hides the structure that is about to be built/restored and which will subsequently be offered again to the public eye. In this case, it is an installation that will permanently cover a work that will never be revealed defining the scaffolding itself as the art intervention. It offers a transitory action that, as opposed to the traditional idea of the monument, does not define the space. Its monumental function begins and ends in the furtive and curious glance of the passer-by.
Mines storyline - The city district of Zibo, the third-largest by population within the Shandong province, has been a keystone mining location till recent years. The excavation activities particularly focused on the Zichuan subdistrict, marked the rural areas of the province with invasive interventions and disruptions of the local ecosystem.
The mountainous area is today characterized by woodlands, villages, mine pits in quarries and terraces built with stone. The extraction activities have been terminated, generating the need for new purpose and value in a location with unique cultural, ecological and social conditions. The local government and enterprises aim to develop a strategic vision that would reinforce local communities and bring new life to the site.
Mining provides a wealth of mineral raw materials to human beings, while also causing serious damage to the environment and ecology. For millennia the planet’s surface was configured by the slow geologic processes of wind and rain. In contrast, mining alters the very geology, topography, hydrology and ecology of sites within years or decades. Mining operations, although expansive and complex, are temporary. However, this kind of activity has a dramatic visual impact on the landscape, creating large areas devoid of vegetation that are seen as intrusive and unattractive. Stone terraces make interesting morphological forms and, thus, they become specific landmarks. Areas of abandoned quarries are an important element of the environment in terms of both their regional and national meaning. Excavated holes left after exploitation of solid rock minerals are characterised by many features, due to which we may talk about their own landscape.
Thanks to these suggestive spots and differences in height, the area attracts many tourists interested in the disrupted landscape.
Mines Storyline is an intervention that tells the story of the landscape using these points as chapters of a landscape narrative. The excavation technique is a procedure by subtraction of volumes, a negative operation by removing material, eroding and digging. Each module is generated by subtraction of simple volumes to remind the operation of eroding and digging proper of the mining activity.
Each structure is a monument to nature and at the same time checkpoint of a predetermined path where hikers and visitors can stop, rest, orient themselves and have pieces of information on the surrounding landscape. Monument after monument, checkpoint after checkpoint, chapter after chapter, is a physical alphabet that creates an embodied knowledge of this specific area.
