VALENTINA PALMI

Text by Estuario Project Space

Exhibition: Marcello in presence

Officina Giovani, Prato

26 June - 7 July 2021

 

"It is in the invisible drama of such a place (slaughterhouses) that the artist intervenes, to honour the passing of the no longer living. This shrine therefore has both a memorial and a cathartic function: restoring the premises means allowing a good transition, something that dissolves congealed forces and gives healthiness to the energies released. The profile, the layout, the dimensions create four new full 'corners' where the Souls can now dwell so that they are not only recalled to presence but can still enjoy it."  

 

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By erecting this temporary memorial, the artist has created a way of communication with the Energies of the Dead in the slaughterhouse.

The construction imposes itself as a white, geometric cross within a messy, cluttered space (pipes, hooks, fire extinguishers), offering four clean, uncluttered corners that are made available to the Energies, still presumably stuck and stagnant in the inaccessible corners of the slaughterhouse.

Here, then, the theme of the sacred imposes itself, as something that does not concern men but the Gods. The fact that the memorial is addressed not so much to the exhibition's users, i.e. to living men, but to the Dead, is made clear by the fact that the four bricks on the ground are engraved with an inscription that reverses in all directions except the one conventionally used by Western men, which goes from left to right and respects the high/low convention.

The memorial is activated by a long fumigation with Palo Santo, which, aided by the helical shape of the building, creates a general and whirling movement of stagnant Energies, which are diverted from the corners of the slaughterhouse towards the pure Corners of the Work.