One week, warm October, Milano, residency with ZONA K. Captivating constellation.

I had a bit more than a month to let my controlled fantasy cycle through this one week over and over again, classify, choose, consider, combine, compose and daily co-work and coordinate with the unbelievable Federica Di Rosa who was producing the “AUDIO IBRIDA”. 

I looked for the essence of the hybrid spaces. I looked for the essence put down in words. And than I looked into it. I looked at it through the magnifying glass of the set theory. Deconstructing it to construct it again, so to highlight what I found lying hidden there. Some words have the unfortunate fate to be overused. These needed special treatment, from an ugly duckling to become a beautiful swan. From a cliché, a multilayered visual metaphor.

I work with the visual construction and perception of the language to create mini-scenarios, which in 90% of the cases contain only 2 words and celebrate the surprising and the intriguing that language has to offer.

In both above mentioned concepts the meanings are produced through the coexistence of the words in the imagination of viewers and depend on the associations provoked.

Of course, I took this opportunity and faced the challenge to step out of my comfort zone and experiment with some different modus operandi  and use new for my artistic language  typographical effects and modes of dissecting the language in order to convey and create meanings.

I aimed at poetic and intellectually challenging conceptual portraits of the hybrid spaces,  which I researched. Portraits that highlight with a twist the essence of each them.

>>> Casa Degli Artisti got a typographical installation where the sight passes from “cross” through “osmosis” to land in “cosmos” 

>>> Stecca 3 couldn't not connect to my proposal highlighting the “cow” in co-working and therefore got an large scale outdoors work, kind of a written portrait, embodying totally new approach to reading and visual perception of language.

>>> Cascina Cuccagna highlighted “intervento dal basso“, in English “grass-root intervention”, as one of their main features. I caught the wind of the place. With “vento” (en. wind) in “intervento” the  “VENTO DEL CAMBIAMENTO” (en. wind of change) blew through the main entrance of this former farmhouse.

>>> In Cascina Sant'ambrogio – Cascinet, among others, a arrow sign was showing the direction to a place where the bees (“api” in Italian) are “cAPI di tutti i capi” ("bosses of the bosses").

>>> Il Cinemino (en. the small cinema), compact and combining a charming cafe and a cinema, got two “syllaBLEndings” displayed on the movie screen and on a cinematic light box.

Being able to express vast knowledge, information, and multiple experiences with just one word is a remarkable feat of language and human intellect. It requires a deep understanding of the subject matter and ability to synthesize complex ideas into simple concepts. The residency and the consequently developed and installed works were an opportunity to master my artistic language and convey rich and nuanced meanings in a single word, effectively distilling an entire experience or concept into a succinct expression. I hope my contribution to the project was thought-provoking and leading to a deeper understanding and appreciation of the richness and potential of these special places.

The intellectual endeavour to research and create in Italian language, a language that does not belong to my working languages, was indulging for my curiosity, fed my explorer's greed and absolutely enriched my artistic research methods and practice.

And last but not least, my passion for working sight-specific with and in public spaces had an opulent feast, as the span of the typologies of spaces and conditions I had to work with and in was wide-ranging.

I had to “c” a lot. I had to “c” the core to find the compelling. “C”-ing was following me even in the a few moments stepping off-road for lunch with Livia . I had paccheri (a type f pasta, originating from Campania)  cacio pepe e funghi.