Without - Collezionando Assenze

Paola Bernardelli

Without - Collezionando Assenze

Paola Bernardelli

Paola Bernardelli’s one month artist residency in Rome was arranged in collaboration with and curated by Maria Rosa Sossai and Claudia Rampelli, co-curators at Accademia Libera delle Arti. The studio was provided by ISFCI School of Photography, courtesy Ottavio Celestino, and the resulting exhibition/performance took place in the courtyard of the School over a three days period.

In an improvised living room Paola heard the stories relative to personal objects that the public was invited to bring along with them, subsequently photographing each personal object with a Polaroid camera and exhibiting the photos. Later in the evening the stories were hand written on individual cards and, together with the Polaroids, formed an archive of memories as imperfect and precarious as memory itself. Choosing to use a Polaroid camera and relying on memory rather than a faithful recording for the transcription of the stories, emphasize the imperfection and impermanence of the mechanisms of memory itself, thus evoking a sense of loss and absence. The title references absence and also its externalisation.

This residency kick-started four collaborative exchange residencies between the two roman institutions and the Void Art School in Derry and was also the prelude to further international collaborations between Art Arcadia and artists and art institutions from Italy, Canada and the UK.

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