The novel of matter

We met Chiara Camoni, artist of the project Con te con tutto for the Italian Pavilion, curated by Cecilia Canziani and promoted by the Directorate-General for Contemporary Creativity of the Italian Ministry of Culture. With a practice that integrates sculpture, drawing, and installation, rethinking the nature of the plastic dimension through assemblage, the reuse of discarded materials, and natural elements, Camoni has developed a body of work grounded in care and in the repetition of simple gestures – modelling, weaving, gathering – through which she has long activated a relational and co-authored dimension. Canziani and Camoni have collaborated since 2010. One of their most significant projects, La giusta misura is an itinerant programme of seminars and workshops based on the shared practice of making and thinking.

What does it mean to be “with”?
In the title of the project for the Italian Pavilion, Con te con tutto, the word “con” – “with”- appears twice. It is present in Con te, (With you) where the “you” can refer to the “other” considered as a human being, but also in Con tutto (With everything) referring to a desire to participate in the entire world, a world that is both animate and inanimate. A participation that also extends to time, understood both as the past and the future. There is a desire for openness, but also a desire to get lost. Because in this context the word “with” brings with it difficulty: opening up to the “other” means being ready to accept their complexity and, therefore, also their difficulty. The word I have continued to reflect on in recent years is “empathy”; I believe that today there is a great need for it. If we can still watch the news it’s because we have lost some of our empathy. If we were fully exposed, we wouldn’t probably be able to watch them anymore. That’s why we must recalibrate our empathy towards the world and understand how we can relate to it.

Thinking in presence, a key to entering the project
It is first and foremost a work that needs to be ‘experienced’ in presence. I believe that today the fruition we are unfortunately used to – also because of the role played by the media – has distanced us from the full meaning of the experience with the work of art. This in some way has led the artists themselves to develop works that could be easily conveyed through this kind of channels. I think it is instead necessary to find again a strong experience with the work of art through our body because it is the only way it can still tell us something new.

Empathy, Dialogues and the creation process
While creating I never feel alone: I feel together with the matter, because I always have a dialogue with it. I start from an intuition, from an idea, but it is the process itself that tells me the path to follow, through many detours. The final form is the result of a series of intermediate steps between me and the matter. Life in my studio is also very lively, because I work daily with a group of people who are not simply collaborators, but a sort of extended family. Their presence is crucial: it is also thanks to their contributions that detours, sudden surges, unexpected solutions occur. Moreover, working in an environment that is not neutral but strongly connoted as my studio is – almost a workshop, with a garden and a kitchen – all the daily experience made up of sounds, noises, colors and interferences can enter the work, as if it were trapped in it. The Dialogues section also opens up a less explored space: I have often worked by comparing myself with other artists, but an unexplored area opened up when I began to ask myself what happens when it is not the artists but the works that enter into relationships. What happens when a sculpture looks at another sculpture? They start to interact in a very special space. When the works are figurative, all this becomes evident, because eyes look at them across the space. When they are not, the dialogue is less explicit, and that is why I ventured a series of installation solutions which would normally not be taken into consideration. I accentuated the proximity, arranging the works one on top of the other, one in front of the other, one in the hands of the other. In the case of Melotti’s two bowls, I modelled an entire sculpture with two hands arranged in such a way as to accommodate these awesome ceramics that have enchanted me since I was a young girl. This sort of stylistic and installation-related short-circuit which takes place here makes me think that I have touched a point which is fully new even to myself. What I’m trying to do exactly is not to take possession of the work, but to bring it to attention, as I would have done myself with my own hands.

A studio near the forest
It all starts from a very direct and personal experience. On my kitchen table, breakfast cups alternate with bowls and sculptures that I shape myself. I switch back and forth between the time of everyday life and the time and space of art. The two dimensions merge into each other, up to an intermediate zone where the distinction is no longer so clear-cut. It is precisely this area of confluence that is extremely interesting for me. Even the relationship with the forest has no intellectual or literary connotation, it is the forest I’m used to. It is not a romantic forest at all, because it overlooks a marble quarry and the extraction explosions shakes the whole valley. The forest is made up of presences, such as tree trunks, which evoke the columns of ancient temples and make me think of bodies – sculpted ones and ours. It is as if every element is constantly flowing into another one, and this flowing is inevitably reflected in my work as well. The works exhibited in the first gallery are completed works, but they also refer to a vision of us and of our time. They have distant roots, but the intention is to place them in the present and to turn their gaze to the future. After this “forest” of figures, a space for fruition opens up, a sort of compromise between an absolute area of art and an area of experience: benches invite visitors to rest and to have a look at the garden which can be seen through the doorway. It is the final part of the journey: the time that passes, the time of the seasons and, after all, the time of our lives.

The “wild” and the “dreamlike” in nature
We can experience nature if we understand it in its bright, joyful, positive aspects, but also if we welcome all the areas of shadow, wildness and even fear that it brings with it. Nature is also a cave, darkness, den, threat. When they invite you to “touch the earth”, and you touch it, the earth is cold, anything but welcoming. Only when I hold both dimensions together do I feel like I’m establishing an authentic relationship with nature. The same happens for the feminine: it is not only welcoming but also repulsive. It brings life and death as well. Works of art can be said to be successful when they retain something unresolved, a contradiction that keeps them alive. When I feel like I understand a work too quickly, perhaps it is the right moment to question the work itself.

The community and “feeling together”
It’s an amazing experience to see such an extraordinary and emotional participation to your own work. It is like having a very precious “treasure” in your hands. Hence the question: what do we do with it? There is a dominant narrative that does not represent us. Yet many of us “feel” differently, and we are much more numerous than we can imagine. Perhaps, by our very nature, we are the disorganized ones, not very networked, often isolated and against the tide, and we all know that bringing together non-aligned people is always difficult. What emerges strongly in this historical moment, however, is the need for something different. In the few last weeks many people have told me that they have dreamed of us and of our works. When a dream stops being an isolated episode and becomes recurring, I wonder if it could not have a political dimension. Probably yes. I don’t know how all this can be organized, but I find it extraordinary. This comes not from me as a person, but from the works themselves.

The Minor Key
I firmly believe in it, because it has enormous potential for transformation. I can be in small groups, because I prefer small groups than big ones, but these groups can multiply and extend. It is not the sensational gesture, but the repetition of many small intentions that generate a huge powerful force.

The “monstrous”
When my daughter sees some of the faces I draw, she says: “But why do you draw so badly?” Even those who enter my studio are initially perplexed but soon an appropriation process starts: the sculptures are given a name, a sort of mutual adoption takes place. Some of them are attractive, others cause discomfort. I believe that this “monstrous” is precisely the key to feel close to the works. Paradoxically, it is what makes the works accessible: you don’t get attached to the “prettiest” ones, but to what sounds familiar to you. It’s deeply connected to life. Let’s think of the butterfly: a symbol of beauty, but up close it looks almost monstrous. It is precisely that point of contact between beauty and the monstrous that is irresistible to me, because it is linked to the unconscious and dreamlike level, where the sublime and the monstrous coexist. My work shows at the same time lights and shadows: nature, feminine, art, unconscious. Not because I want to say too much, but because perhaps there is something that brings together all these dimensions.

End and transformation: what will remain of the Italian Pavilion?
We all know very well that children are very happy when they build something, but also when they destroy it. When you destroy, when you disassemble, you’re actually preparing for the next work. I feel happy in both processes, because they allow me to stay within a cycle. However, I really can’t say what will remain of this project for the people who will visit it.

Readings
I recently read again Joseph Brodsky. In In a Room and a Half he describes his nine-square-meter apartment overflowing with books. A sentence, in particular, in this text is very important to me: “There are crimes worse than burning books. One of these is not to read them.”

Featured image: Chiara Camoni – Photo Camilla Maria Santini