work
1 second 1 gram
| category | Performance |
| subject | Political / Social |
| tags | |
| hours | 3 |
| minutes | 0 |
| seconds | 0 |
| year | 2023 |
Present age is characterized by a frenetic transformation, it is made of sudden acceleration and breaking, impellent deadlines and endless updates. The consequences are tragic because the society is exhausted and deprived of time, the most important and essential resource. 1 second 1 gram raises questions about the value of making time as well as space; the project offers an experience characterized by gratuity and grace; in the end, the action empowers the individual within a community.
From a practical point of view, the performance is an individual and collective action at the same time. At the entrance, visitors are asked how much time they desire; their decision is personal, inviolable and not retroactive. The required time is converted in a quantity of clay, according to the ratio: 1 second = 1 gram. Visitors can freely shape the clay for the duration established at the entrance; timers monitor the duration available and warn when the time is over. Visitors then leave the clay in the space, clean their hands and can get out of the space. As the performance go on, an exposition of sculptures is progressively generated.
The performance explores the value of time and reflects on human attempts of controlling, sculpting and consuming the temporal dimension, an element which is becoming more and more elusive in our era. The action takes inspiration from the lack of time and the anxious struggle of being always up to date in the current society. The action makes possible different kinds of answers, it lends time and opens an interval giving people the strength of going back to everyday life with the ability of making space and time. The visitors can ask time, take it, shape it, hold it in their hands, stroke it. The performance allows the collectivity finding the time which had been lost; in other words, it is an action not aiming at the realization of a commercial product, but at reviving a sleeping desire.
Between 2022 and 2023, the project has involved many cultural partners and it has been exposed in several places, among them: Modo asbl (Bruxelles), La Rada (Locarno), OnCurating Project Space (Zurich), the Italian Institute of Culture (Zurich), the International Museum of Ceramics (Faenza), Careof (Milan), BAC (Berna), Kuona Artists Collective (Nairobi), Lac o Le Mon Foundation (Lecce), the Academies of Fine Arts in Venice, Verona and Milan.
Project supported by the Italian Council (11th edition, 2022), the program aimed at supporting Italian contemporary art in the world promoted by the Directorate-General for Contemporary Creativity within the Italian Ministry of Culture
From a practical point of view, the performance is an individual and collective action at the same time. At the entrance, visitors are asked how much time they desire; their decision is personal, inviolable and not retroactive. The required time is converted in a quantity of clay, according to the ratio: 1 second = 1 gram. Visitors can freely shape the clay for the duration established at the entrance; timers monitor the duration available and warn when the time is over. Visitors then leave the clay in the space, clean their hands and can get out of the space. As the performance go on, an exposition of sculptures is progressively generated.
The performance explores the value of time and reflects on human attempts of controlling, sculpting and consuming the temporal dimension, an element which is becoming more and more elusive in our era. The action takes inspiration from the lack of time and the anxious struggle of being always up to date in the current society. The action makes possible different kinds of answers, it lends time and opens an interval giving people the strength of going back to everyday life with the ability of making space and time. The visitors can ask time, take it, shape it, hold it in their hands, stroke it. The performance allows the collectivity finding the time which had been lost; in other words, it is an action not aiming at the realization of a commercial product, but at reviving a sleeping desire.
Between 2022 and 2023, the project has involved many cultural partners and it has been exposed in several places, among them: Modo asbl (Bruxelles), La Rada (Locarno), OnCurating Project Space (Zurich), the Italian Institute of Culture (Zurich), the International Museum of Ceramics (Faenza), Careof (Milan), BAC (Berna), Kuona Artists Collective (Nairobi), Lac o Le Mon Foundation (Lecce), the Academies of Fine Arts in Venice, Verona and Milan.
Project supported by the Italian Council (11th edition, 2022), the program aimed at supporting Italian contemporary art in the world promoted by the Directorate-General for Contemporary Creativity within the Italian Ministry of Culture
