Grazia Gallo

sociaal-maatschappelijk, Objecten, installatie, Archieven

My work draws from personal memories and my family archive, using them as a foundation to explore themes of home, belonging, and collective identity. Growing up in working-class communities and surrounded by social housing architecture, I became deeply aware of how physical spaces shape our lived experiences. Through my practice, I aim to reinterpret these environments by integrating sustainable methods of creating home with materials that evoke memory and connection.\r\n\r\nI work primarily in sculpture, crafting pieces from reclaimed and found objects that hold historical and emotional significance. This process reflects my interest in social practice- with my the ongoing project La Grazieria-, engaging local communities and fostering conversations about the meaning of home, memory, and heritage in everyday life. By merging the physicality of sculpture with communal narratives, I hope to challenge conventional notions of architecture and domesticity, particularly in relation to working-class environments, domestic labour and their rich histories.

La Grazieria pasta workshop summer edition
La Grazieria pasta workshop summer edition - Workshop 2023_ The workshop focused on experiencing a sense of home through the act of cooking and eating together using flour from a local mill and other ingredients sourced from a nearby community garden and local shops. In collaboraiton with Antonio de la Hera and Honey Jones-Hughes
La Grazieria Reading room workshop
La Grazieria Reading room workshop - Workshop 2023_ The Workshop cantered around the idea of making home through objects of memories. In collaboration with Reading Room Rotterdam. Book title, The material kinship. Clementine Edwards and Kris Dittle. 2022
La Grazieria movie night at Rib
La Grazieria movie night at Rib - Movie night 2023_ Two movie screenings followed by an open discussion on the role of women and housewives in modern society. The conversation explored the impact of modern architecture and new tools meant to ease domestic labor, questioning their effectiveness and the evolving dynamics of gender roles in the home. Part of Last terminal, reflection on the coming apocalypse part1, summer residency 2023 , in collaboraiton with Emma van Noort. Screenings: Vogliamo anche le rose, Alina Marazzi( 2008) , Mon ancle,Jacques Tati (1958)
La Grazieria pasta edition
La Grazieria pasta edition - Workshop 2023_ How to turn an unknown space into a familiar one? And what kinds of gestures can help the personal and the collective to claim, even if temporary a space? Food plays an important role in building a sense of home. By cooking the recipe from our homes we fight the nostalgic feelings when thinking about our places of belonging. By eating them we recall their smells, colors and taste. By sharing them with others we wish to keep our memories alive.
La Grazieria hairsalon part II
La Grazieria hairsalon part II - Installaiton 2023_ Once again the hair salon is an excuse to think of ways that give attention to care in the household as a form of legitimate labour.  The question of home is taken a step further. In a community built of many, resisting the injustices of the growing housing market, how can we actively find ways of being together for a community beyond the walls of the home?
La Grazieria hair salon - Installaiton 2022_Hair salons are those spaces that host verbal communications; most often these places become the reflectors for people seeking a new look- a new identity. The hairdresser moreover is one of these “social jobs” like the bartender, taxi driver and so forth where people share their stories in a very casual way often not even being aware of exposing themself to a semi-stranger. La Grazieria is an installation that reflects upon places of belonging related to migration and cultural heritage.
Flesh&Blood, Violet rib-bon. The day after the storm - Installation 2022_ Blue pipes, pieces of golden clay, fabrics, foam and blankets form meanings to reflect upon the meaning of home. Home as a space of negotiation between the multiple subjects who inhabit it, therefore called to find new constant equilibriums in existing as individuals and coexist as a collective. Home as a space to reflect on memories, home as facilitator to create new infinite conversations.
Intermezzo - Installation 2021_To create spaces within the present exhibition space, via fragmented structures made by the assemblage pre-existing metal pipes, transparent plastic tubes,latex, concrete and tape. Intermezzo focuses on the idea of the joints as a tool to connect things together. The structure here become the subject matter which intertwine and find space creating a new system of infrastructure within the existing one.
'@ Dyad - Installation 2021_ From the saying that dirty clothes must to be washed inside the house. A glimpse of a family gathering made from domestic objects that can't wait to meet the gaze of a distracted passerby. This work wants to break down the old convention about domestic spaces as those that need to remain private. Instead it wants to open up its “windows” to the world and enter into conversation with its public.
(De)constracted Memories - Installation 2021_(De) Constracted mermories is Investigating ways of working with different materials to physically translate memories which often become blured by the passing of time. Here seven sculptures are used as a portals to reflect on places of belonging and nostalgic memories more precisely the ones coming from childhood.
Broken Promises - Installation 2021_ How does it feel to be a woman in today's society? To stay silent and follow the fake stereotypes proposed by the media, which determines the beauty standards in its most superficial meaning, seems to be the only way to success! Conceived as empty, but yet beautiful statues, this work emphasizes the image of the woman from a chauvinistic mentality, because I am afraid, is still the one that governs the most of minds today.
Avenida Encontrada - Installation 2020_"This insight is not meant to make us feel melancholic or nostalgic, but rather calls for attention to fulfill these broken promises". SLAVOY ZIZEK (2008). Wondering around the city, encountering discarded objects and talking with the people of the neighborhood, Avenida Encontrada is the result of a month residency in Bueons Aires.
Xeno Naturamorta - Installation 2021_Every Era is made by the inanimate objects it has produced. In museums, an entire civilization is portrayed in anthropological means by the careful recognition and categorization of tools, furniture and any other surviving materials recived from the subject matter. Making use of the traditional composition strategies used in still life painting, I reframe the way we look at the function of objects that characterize our era; a link betterrn the past and the present to serve the future.
‘Un’Functional green - Installation 2018 _'Un'functional Green is about decontextualizing the industrial, mass-produced, disposable products that permeate our society today. The recurring color neon green is used to emphasize the origin of the objects production, their artificiality, their industrial provenance. Consisting of objects that share a similar formal language, and positioned so that they are in dialogue with one another and with the viewer as their move about the installation, each sculpture is a tacit claim for their own identity, a justification for their existence .

Think tangier

Datum:
Locatie: Think tangier

Coming up

La Grazieria summer edition

Datum:
Locatie: rib

While exploring through different practices such as haircutting, karaoke, pasta making reading and drawing workshops and movie screenings, this residency focused on creating a series of events responding to Rib project 'the last terminal, reflection on the apocalypse part 1.

Project

Datum:
Locatie: Santoriello workshop

During this residency, I focused on mastering the traditional craft and techniques of Ceramica Vietrese. I created an extended panel of ceramic tiles, replicating the facade of a social housing building. The designs on the tiles draw inspiration from various historical periods of Ceramica Vietrese, reflecting its rich artistic evolution

La Grazieria on tour

Datum:
Locatie: Archivio di stato, Salerno, Biblioteca nazionale, Salerno.

I spent a three-month research period in my hometown of Salerno, focusing on three interconnected areas to gain a deeper understanding of my own cultural heritage.
I delved into the Mediterranean trade history in ceramics, visited city archives to study local history on social housing, and began a new project on family archives, trousseaus, and embroidery, uncovering their significance in cultural identity. The outcome will be shown at the next Art Rotterdam for the Prospect exhibition.

La Grazieria hairsalon/ reading room

Datum:
Locatie: Poortgebow
In samenwerking met: ReadingRoomRotterdam

This session had hold an anti-capitalist approach to how domestic labor is essential in our lives as we all learn how to live together. Hosted in the Poortgebouw, the question of home is taken a step further. In a community built of many, resisting the injustices of the growing housing market, how can we actively find ways of being together for a community beyond the walls of the home?

La Graziaria Pasta workshop

Datum:
Locatie: An Other World

La Grazieria is nomadic, can have multiple functions and has the purpose of bringing people together with the intention to create moments for sharing. For the workshop each participant was asked to bring a favorite ingredient. During the workshop some people worked together to make fresh pasta. Others based on the ingredients brought were asked to come up with new recipes for dressing the pasta. The workshop was an excuse to facilitate conversations between strangers.

La Grazieria hair dresser

Datum:
Locatie: Showroom M@MA

Hair salons are those spaces that host verbal communications; most often these places become the reflectors for people seeking a new look/ identity.The hairdresser is one of these “social jobs” where people share their stories in a very casual way often not even being aware of exposing themself to a semi-stranger. La Grazieria reflects upon places of belonging related to migration and cultural heritage using the hair salon as a vassal for exchange information and create informal encounters

Avenida Encontrada

Datum:
Locatie: Nave Agora'

"This insight is not meant to make us feel melancholic or nostalgic, but rather calls for attention to fulfill these broken promises". SLAVOY ZIZEK (2008). Wondering around the city, encountering discarded objects and talking with the people of the neighborhood, Avenida Encontrada is the result of a month residency in Bueons Aires.

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