Marisa Albanese
The installation arises from intimate considerations about a subject which has filled news reports for years: the condition of migrants, always considered foreigners, always maintained on the other side of a dinstinct, occasionally invisible, boundary.
A tree is horizontally suspended in the space of the gallery and its roots are transformed into branches where words, flowing like lifeblood, are projected. These are ancient words taken from Homer’s Odyssey in which the voyage become a universal paradigm of human life, in mankind’s never-ending search for his or her own identity.
The tree’s double branches, significantly entitled Doppio cielo (Double Sky), refer to the image of two confronting skies reminiscent of migrant populations who gaze at similar, yet at the same time different, skies. Much in the same manner as Ulyssis, migrants face danger in crossing unknown seas but never cease to treasure their native roots, especially beneath the frequently hostile skies of their new homelands.
The voices of Iaia Forte and Pino Ferraro, in Italian and Greek, give substance and sound to Homer’s texts which are simultaneously projected onto the gallery walls to form an imaginary horizon composed of ancestral words.
Also on exhibit are more intimate works based on the same inspiration such as Book#1, a book –sculpture which depicts the fusion between women and the earth as well as the water-colours of the Corpi d’acqua (Bodies of Water) cycle dedicated to the symbology of roots.
