E se una notte un cantastorie
Oggi si è proiettati sempre avanti. Non c’è spazio per sedimentare le esperienze vissute.
Il passato viene cancellato in nome di un presente schiacciante. La memoria dell’uomo contemporaneo assomiglia sempre di più al nastro di una videocassetta: si fa “reset” e si registra qualcosa di nuovo.
Ma il passato cancellato e quindi non superato in tutte le sue sfaccettature ritornerà sempre a bussare alle menti sotto le vesti di tracce rimosse che emergeranno improvvisamente a disturbare il presente. E allora si prova a dare un ordine alle tracce che riaffiorano nel nostro qui e ora: si scrive per paura di dimenticare, si archivia ciò che si vive nel breve termine, si collezionano macerie e rifiuti per dare un senso alle proprie esperienze. Ed infine si cerca di elaborare i propri vissuti attraverso un estremo atto di coraggio: si condivide il proprio racconto, la propria storia, per chi la vorrà ascoltare.
And if one night a storyteller
The installation “And if one night a storyteller” consists of a sculpture and a video. The sculpture consists of a catalogue made of wood and recycled carton, of a drape deriving from an old woollen scarf and a diary with daily annotations rigorously written at the present. The drawers of the archive contain 5000 anonymous and never sent envelopes containing notes from the diary, quotations, thoughts and photos – each different one from the other.The video loop was recorded with an old super Eight inside a garage, a place transformed by the passing of time and especially by the lack of attention of their owners, who have being accumulating stuff without an order and then suddenly became aware of this (it is possible to see the video by clicking on the link given in the optional space).
Nowadays we are always looking forward, and we give no space to collect our lived experience. The past is cancelled by the overwhelming present. The contemporary man’s memory is comparable to the tape of a cassette: with just a reset it is possible to substitute what is recorded with something new. However, the deleted past always returns to provoke and unsettle the human minds. As a result, men try to tidy these memories up: some write to forget, some pretend to forget what they have been living, some other collect scraps in order to make sense of their own experiences. Lastly, some men try to give an order to their past experiences with an extreme act of courage: they share their own tales and their own history with those who might be interested to listen to them.
The title of this work takes inspiration from an old memory of my father. When he was young and was living in a farm in the immaculate countryside not far from Milan, he used to spend some winter evenings outside on the farmyard, around a fire animated by old pieces of carton. He was spending time there in the company of other children and of the storyteller El Carlin, who was telling them some stories in order to get a place where he could sleep. At the end of his tales the storyteller was giving the children small pieces of paper on which he had written some of his maxims, so that they could remember his words and keep them for the future. This installation is an interactive tool inviting the spectators to participate in it and listen to their own consciousness.