Ilaria Abbiento from Naples
Your new daily ritual ...
Usually my daily ritual, anchored to my artistic research, contemplate long walks on the banks. Today, not being able to reach the coast due to the restrictions imposed due to Covid-19, I try to walk with my thoughts, everyday, noting in the pages of the diary of my quarantine the changing perceptions marked by this ample time lived in my domestic enclosure, imagining new landscapes. I read a poem a day. I deepen the understanding of the poetics of my favorite artists, reading books dedicated to them or watching some documentaries. I choose an artist a day, yesterday I swam in the big by Pino Pascali, today I will fly in sky by Ettore Spalletti.
How your way of working has changed?
My artistic practice is normally nourished by a continuous investigation aimed at the landscape and in particular at the element of sea water, essential and recurring theme of my works. In addition to the photographic images that I collect during my research, I accumulate traces of materials which then become part of the exhibition installation of my works. Now, that I cannot do my daily blue exercise, in addition to working in my laboratory on the photographic archive and in particular on a project that I am developing after my recent artist residency on the island of Capraia, I try to make visual thinking images by exploring everything around me. Confined within the chambers of my exile, I contemplate the air and the shape of this new space, trying to reveal a vision of an imaginary landscape, finding the sea where there is none.
What you're missing? Your personal experience of "absence" and "lack".
I lost my father a few days ago. In truth I have not lost it, it just moved into my heart. I think this is the most boundless absence of my entire life. In the privation of his embrace, of the word, of a look, today I try to transform my pain into immense Love as he has always taught me. My mood, melancholy and nostalgic, however, it permeates the absence of the noise of the world. It's strange, but at times I have the feeling that the entire planet penetrates into my pain by remaining silent, as in a prayer.
If my dad was still here with me, now, I would miss not being able to tell him: dad today I'll take you to the sea.
How do you imagine the world, when everything will start again?
"Nine March two thousand and twenty", the lines of a poem by Mariangela Gualtieri reflect on the change we are experiencing:
“This I want to tell you we had to stop. We knew it.
We all felt that our doing was too furious. Stay inside things ...
… Now we are home. What happens is portentous. And there is gold, I believe, in this strange time. Maybe there are gifts. Gold nuggets for us. If we help each other. There is a very strong appeal of the species now and everyone has to think about it as a species now. A common destiny keeps us here. We knew it. But not too good. Either all of them or none. "
And therefore I would start again from these verses, hoping for a human thought that can regenerate itself together with the rebirth of the planet., to its new shoots. Mindful of the abyss of loneliness into which each of us has fallen, I hope we can understand the concern for a collective act aimed at preserving nature. I hope there can be more kindness of mind towards others and the wisdom to preserve gold in this strange time.
To date, what have been the immediate consequences of the spread of Covid-19 on your work for you and what do you think the long-term consequences may be?
In February I left for the island of Capraia for the artist residence of Plaza Art Residency curated by Claudio Composti, artistic director of mc2gallery in Milan and of the internal gallery of the Hotel Plaza and De Russie in Viareggio by Salvatore Madonna. Somehow I was already experiencing my quarantine, but there it was different, mine was a sweet isolation in which I immersed myself in a landscape suspended over the ocean, on long journeys in the heart of unspoiled nature, in the celestial vision of the sea.
I was so dazzled by the light of the island's lighthouse and enchanted by the volcanic stones that, despite having completed my research, I would have extended my residence. Covid_19 forced me to return home, I suddenly fell from heaven to hell. I have three exhibitions scheduled, now on a date to be defined. I can't be clear about the future, but as an idealist I can only imagine the poetics of my artistic research, suspended in this dilated time, may raise the depth of thought of my future works.
Ilaria Abbiento is an artist who lives and works in Naples. She was a pupil of Antonio Biasiucci undertaking a research path of author photography. He has exhibited in various contemporary art galleries and museums such as Al Blu di Prussia in Naples, Le Quadrilatère in Beauvais in Francia, a L’Art Pur Gallery a Riyadh e Hafez Gallery a Jeddah in Arabia Saudita, the Gallery of Modern Art in Catania, the Macro Museum of Rome, the Madre Museum and the Museum of Villa Pignatelli in Naples. His works are part of art collections such as Imago Mundi Art, the Archive of the Malerba Fund for photography, Mediterraneum Collection, and the Vallicelliana Library in Rome. He has participated in various artist residencies including BoCs Art in Cosenza and The Photosolstice at Asinara, Plaza Art Residency on the island of Capraia. He has won several awards including, recently, an artist’s residency in Corsica with the Photolux Festival in collaboration with the Center Méditerranéen de la Photographie in Bastia. From 2019 works with Claudio Composti, artistic director of mc2gallery in Milan and Beatrice Burati Anderson Gallery in Venice. His artistic research focuses on the theme of the landscape, of the sea and the Mediterranean to which he has dedicated several works over time. www.ilariaabbiento.com
Link to the latest project: http://www.ilariaabbiento.com/QUADERNO-DI-UN-ISOLA