Nothing surprises us more than nature and its phenomena. Valeriana Berchicchi knows this well and with charming simplicity brings the wonder of light radiating from La Sala Santa Rita out of the darkness, in a project curated by Anita Calà and VILLAM Association.
Every great artist contemplates light in their work, knowing that it is an essential material. In Lo spiracolo di Santa Rita, Valeriana Berchicchi harnesses light, dominating it to create a wonderful scenario.
Sight, which is our preferred sense, is the main actor in this work. It guides us in a gradual discovery towards the image that slowly emerges as we get used to darkness.
The mind tends to complete the image which the eye cannot immediately understand. At first, indistinct shapes emerge as abstract images, then the scenery appears as a dream that becomes increasingly clearer.
The world in this large dark room appears upside down, people walk upside down and the metaphysical dimension acquires physicality through the Chapel space.
The spatio-temporal circumstance created by the artist is one possible reality among the many imaginable ones, just as the monadism Leibniz speaks of is dualism as well as ambivalence, antechamber, but also a window.
We witness the materialisation of images, similar to what happens between our optical cone and the antechamber of the brain. We move between rational ocular mechanics and a oniric dimension.
The light/shadow combination, alienating and immersive, is experiential to the point of making this world plausible in its own right. The darkness, which is normally obscured by the many screens we live with, in this case is a horizon that gives rise to countless others.
Valeriana Berchicchi’s project offers a contented isolation, a dreamy look at reality, a welcome solitude, uplifting and therapeutic.
Valeriana Berchicci, LO SPIRACOLO DI SANTA RITA
curated by Anita Calà proposed by Villam Cultural Association, Sala Santa Rita, Rome, until September 15, 2021 (2 – 4.30 p.m. with green pass)
