MARIA VITTORIA FALDINI
she/her | 1997, Milan, Italy | based in London
The locations are restless. For passer-by’s they create a tunnel of emotions, physical and mental restraint, indulgence and ritualistic action. The air around them is humid, sweaty. A transmission of past memories, traumas, instants of fragility and innocence. To experience these locations the body is pushed pulled torn tightened and pressed. The absent, present and formless body exists through the objects and space and their transgressive capacities.
Notions of sacred ritual and sacrifice are underscored by altar-like forms and through ongoing studies of the nature of the divine. Ordinary objects convert into iconographies. The suspension of bodies simulates levitation. The concept of household, domestic and tradition appears. An embracement of contradictions, a melancholy of the past, a persistent search of self.
Body constrictions occur through the submission of weak and rigid materials. Tension endures in a visually tactile form. The viewer is aware of the materials offered through their smell and visual temperature – the warmth of foam, the coldness of steel. Modifications of bodies appear as both temporary and indelible, channelling the inner child and the present self, both living in the now. An interest in the vulnerability of the membranes in question is apparent, along with the thought of how far it could be stretched or pulled before it ruptures.