Video installation presented at the Villa Da Porto in Montorso Vicentino (Extract from the presentation text)
… Fire does not have a precise form, but adheres to things that burn .. adheres to the right and therefore can shape the world .. clarity that does not hurt .. Also: Everything that shines depends on what it adheres to .. so it can shine durably – Ching hexagram 30 The adherent (The fire).
The inspiration for this work was born from this wisdom sentence: the largest fire is the sun and – as its fire adheres to the incandescent sphere that generates it – on the contrary, the fire generated by man has been progressively tamed, contained in objects , shot from one point to another, launched towards external targets … could it be said that this is a fire that detaches itself from its center?
Fire is now associated with a destructive element, a weapon of conquest, of oppression, of death. Yet fire symbolizes light, energy, strength… So what is the reason for this change of sign?
And again: isn’t fire also part of us? Our inner fire, which inflames us with love, with the desire for justice and joy, which rebalances the cold and humid moods … so if it adheres to us it can thus shine and make us shine?
And is it also true that, if instead we detach it from us, it would transform itself into its negative… into violence, into a desire for oppression?
So what? … then may the Fire reflect itself within us to be recognized … may it finally adhere to our heart and be fed with our superfluous things, may it nourish itself by burning our waste, our negative!
So an installation that refers to a purification rite and that recalls the ancient sweat lodge of the Native Americans, the INIPI.
The room is transformed into an archaic cave in which virtual fires reverberate on all the walls, wood ash on the ground, some logs for sitting, 7 fluorescent stones in a circle (to remember the incandescent stones used by the Sioux in the ritual of the purification cave that they indicated the 7 directions that is the four cardinal points, Heaven, Earth and the Spirit).
A secular reflection that refers us to our vital fire, to the sacred and primary needs that interconnect us with nature.
Let’s contemplate the fire, let’s recognize it as a mirror of our inner fire, let’s feed it with our spiritual waste, let’s mark on the ashes what we want to throw away.
The installation consists of 3 videos and a 4 square meter mirror.
The first video projects in loop on the right wall 70 images and 10 video sequences showing ancient and contemporary rites around the fire: from gypsies in Provence, to African or South American or European populations. The fire that heats, that cooks food, that unites humans around it. The images of the videos are taken from the film La guerra del fuoco by J. Jacques Annaud, from video frames by Yukihiro Taguchi, a Japanese artist who, after having recycled the waste from the beach in front of a city, has installed a tent and a fire around it. to which the citizens joined him, the depictions of Moses in front of the divine stake, historical films and images of rites around the fire that celebrate his revealing and purifying presence.
The second video shows on the left wall a sequence of 90 images taken also from archive photos of ancient and contemporary wars, of their dead and wounded and of children holding weapons in war zones. A third video, projected inside the fireplace in the large room of Villa Da Ponte, shows the fire of a bread oven and a bonfire in the countryside. Here the fire is seen in its changing forms, a hypnotic and evocative metamorphosis until it becomes ashes.
At the other end of the room a 4 sq m mirror. its life cycle reverberates throughout the room.
On the floor a layer of ash, logs and 7 fluorescent stones.
