Werkserie “Colonne”
What is this work about, I ask myself when looking in the eyes of people, taken quite abash at the look of it.
I write all this in a language that is not mine. Maybe because the language that is not mine gives me more freedom. I don´t need to be perfect in expression or vocabulary “it’s not my language”
I can feel poetic “it’s not my language”
I can follow my intuition “it’s not my language”
I can fail orthography “it’s not my language”
I can create words that don’t exist “it’s not my language”
When I speak a language that is not mine I feel strong and free, I can allow myself to fail, I can be stupid or funny and there is no fear. The columns “Le colonne” as I want to call them are a new language for me. They are something that happened, unexpected and magical. A language that is not mine yet.
Le colonne are textile sculptures, each colonna is made of the clothes of one person. The first one, Me, is made out of old clothes I cannot wear anymore. Clothes that were important once, clothes that were the language of appearance, once, but are not this language anymore. For various reasons this language of appearance has changed. Change of body, change of mind, change of social position, change of workplace, change of physical momentum
So I take this “skin” like the skin of a snake and transform it into a column, a tree, a totem. A memory to the language that was, a memory that can be touched, embraced, hugged. A testimony to change, nothing sad just something to gain awareness. A letter written in another language. Or better a letter dictated to a machine that does not speak , that does not understand the words but diligently writes down all the sounds you make.
The form happens, it is not deliberate, I just compress by sawing all the clothes knotted around a center and a heavy base. I started by chance not wanting to throw away certain clothes, a skin that had meant something to me, that was too worn out to be owned by someone else and that I did not want to end up in a landfill or in a furnace. So I decided to make a sculpture a column, but I would have never imegined the anthropomorphic form it would take.
it was like: there is somebody in my studio, is it me, is it a ghost, is it good, is it mean, and then I understood. It was me, it was my memory, it was my skin, it was my old body or better my young body and I could sit with it and talk to it and embrace it.
It is soft and strong at the same time, I cannot hurt it, it is warm and compact and when you slide over the surface you feel the seams like the bark of a tree.
I have made other 3 colonne since then. My father, my uncle and my son, and I hope to continue because it is a work that makes memories tangible a way to preserve and to renew.
The Flowers
times are dark right now and it seems they are getting darker and darker.
Not only because of the Winter and its short days unfortunately. Winter days would mean rest and cosy feelings around the fireplace, but that’s not the case right now. No cosy feelings and fires are burning but the fire places in the houses are crumbled.
I started to make flowers already a while ago, out of the leftovers of Bellaperforza cloth. Actually for a project in Riace to raise money for the housing of migrants. The village of Riace was crashed by evil forces and so was the project. But the desire to make flowers remained and grew stronger and stronger over time.
We started again in Egypt, flowers for Fadwa Nayef’s wonderful exhibition. It was not just me anymore exactly as I had hoped for the original project, we were many and we had so much fun.
It was so joyful to make them, it was beautiful to see them, it was like giving life to a child’s dream.
Back in Europe I continued, not immediately, there was Covid in between, but they were always in the back of my mind.
And when I restarted I got seriously obsessed. Not only the flowers anymore but I started to make also the vases. Collecting glass jars from everywhere. With the help of my neighbour, she works in a shoeshop and brings me all the silk paper which is inside the shoeboxes and which gets just thrown away, I started to cover the jars. I paint them and gild them and draw on them.
Hof 33 Freestyle, I call this obsession, it can include almost everything and it unleashes positive energy I think. And maybe that’s about all I can do right now to fight against the evil forces. I know its not much but I want to try. With materials that would be thrown away from discarded textiles to paper from shoe boxes. The trash becomes fun and maybe beauty, but whatever it is, it makes people smile and that’s already a lot these days.
Real flowers are quite a nasty business today so lets all start to make flowers out of old textiles, it is easy and is also a lot of fun.
Bella per Forza, developments
It´s been a long time since I have been writing about Bella per Forza, many things happened not least the Covid lockdowns.
Here is a picture of the remains after the printing in Caccuri (the very first station of the project), the cloth underlying the printing action.
I loved it and kept it.
And then one winter, as is a habit in fairytales, I took a piece of cloth out of the drawer and started to embroider on it. At first almost without a clear intention. It was a bit like the colours and half visible forms, fading and overlaid needed something to wake them from their sleepy existence.
Here you can see me embroidering in Cairo airport, my flight was delayed and since the winter day I started to work on the left over cloth I take them with me wherever I go.
incredible stories appear, and I am the magician who is able to unravel and disclose all those images that unnumerous hands have printed on the surface.
I also kept and dried some of the potato stamps but what I will make out of them is not totally sure yet.
But the cloth is almost finished seven wallhangings I want to make and up to now I have finished five.
dorismaninger 