ICASTICA 2013, First Women Biennale, Arezzo, Italy

Picture by Anita Vozza

Innocence

“In 2006, my life was a desert. Everybody seemed busy, active, alive, while I was a prisoner in my own apartment. Nothing was happening in my life, and I felt I was a thing among others in my home. One day I received from a friend a pack of clay. I started to roll small pearls of porcelain from the clay for no reason. They were cute. To escape from my lethargy, every night I rolled pearls made of porcelain, like Penelope weaving her tapestry while waiting for Ulysses, except that in my story there was no Ulysses. All the pearls together became a very long necklace of a few metres; very beautiful, very difficult to move, very heavy.”

This was some years ago and for me it is now impossible to repeat that work. Everything has changed since then: the others and I. Therefore the symbolism of the pearls has evolved as well. This time the necklace will weight 50 kilogrammes to embody my 50 years of life. It was a spontaneous idea that I had, which I expressed the idea with joy; 50 is a number so easily said but 50 kilogrammes of porcelain can be tedious and laborious.