work
Wormsdirect
| category | Installation |
| subject | Animal |
| tags | |
| base | 600 cm |
| height | 400 cm |
| depth | 450 cm |
| year | 2017 |
'Wormsdirect' explores the consequences of aesthetic judgments in the context of the current ecological crisis and the fragility and vulnerability of nonhuman beings.
The work builds an environment of connection and encounter among people and nonhuman (organic or not) bodies and between people themselves, to generate a feeling of empathy coming from human beings towards nonhuman beings.
Earthworms are seen as slimy and disgusting. However, they are essential for the soil, because their burrowing creates canals for the water and air to pass through: they aerate and drain the soil. Earthworms also create a sort of agglomerations of soil that it is crucial for plants to root into and grow, they eat dead organic matter and when they expel it, this matter had become fertilizer for the soil.
Earthworms’ existence and their activity for the planet leads us towards an exploration of the concept of transition, renewal, regeneration ( given both by the video of the earthworms and by the fact that everything in Wormsdirect is changing: the grass, the soil, the water moving in the tubes/evaporating ). Earthworms live underground the surface of the soil; they are not visible to human eyes and they are often associated with death, decomposition, deterioration and humility.
Charles Darwin considered earthworms as ‘ fundamental to the making and remaking of the world’. Their constant and uncontrollable activity of macerating can be interpreted with a sense of loss which is not detrimental, but, rather, transformational: ‘ they buried to renew: they digested to restore’.
In 'Wormsdirect', human beings do not have priority over the rest: the transformation of the grass and soil in the room, which has a different appearance and smells every day, represent the transience of the life of living beings. The red water flowing through the pipes in the room resembles the functioning of the circulatory system of living beings, including plants. The screens hanging from the ceiling encourage the audience to lie down on the grass, face-up, to observe a video, whose absolute protagonists are earthworms, filmed with a macroscopic lens, to reveal every detail. In the act of lying on the ground to observe, perhaps for the first time, earthworms, that are so important for our survival on earth, 'Wormsdirect' direct the public to a different approach towards what is other than human (and slimy! ): starting from 'seeing', and not just looking, the earthworms. This simple act could, consequently, pushes us to 'see' everything else in the room: the water that flows in the pipes makes them warm as if they were living bodies, the pungent smell of dirt, the grass turning yellow, the humidity in the room. Lying on the ground is also a way to arouse a stronger closeness to the world of earthworms, the soil being their environment, through the sense of touch and smell. The intent is to invite the public to take this experience with them, starting in the exhibition space and continuing in the outside world. Indeed, 'Wormsdirect' incites to look at the potential of encounters between human and non-human beings as a way to learn 'to see' differently: taking care of the planet we depend on and the terrestrial beings that populate it, we could stimulate a different form of empathy towards the non-human world, and (why not?) that it can, finally, also change the relationships between us human beings through a deeper and stronger use of empathy.
Installation: 2 tonnes and half of fine topsoil, 36 square meters of turf, 85 meters of clear plastic tubes filled with water and glitters, 2 water pumps, 2 waste bins, 8 meters of filled fabric, HD flat screen 80 inches hanged from the ceiling at 2 m , sound.
The work builds an environment of connection and encounter among people and nonhuman (organic or not) bodies and between people themselves, to generate a feeling of empathy coming from human beings towards nonhuman beings.
Earthworms are seen as slimy and disgusting. However, they are essential for the soil, because their burrowing creates canals for the water and air to pass through: they aerate and drain the soil. Earthworms also create a sort of agglomerations of soil that it is crucial for plants to root into and grow, they eat dead organic matter and when they expel it, this matter had become fertilizer for the soil.
Earthworms’ existence and their activity for the planet leads us towards an exploration of the concept of transition, renewal, regeneration ( given both by the video of the earthworms and by the fact that everything in Wormsdirect is changing: the grass, the soil, the water moving in the tubes/evaporating ). Earthworms live underground the surface of the soil; they are not visible to human eyes and they are often associated with death, decomposition, deterioration and humility.
Charles Darwin considered earthworms as ‘ fundamental to the making and remaking of the world’. Their constant and uncontrollable activity of macerating can be interpreted with a sense of loss which is not detrimental, but, rather, transformational: ‘ they buried to renew: they digested to restore’.
In 'Wormsdirect', human beings do not have priority over the rest: the transformation of the grass and soil in the room, which has a different appearance and smells every day, represent the transience of the life of living beings. The red water flowing through the pipes in the room resembles the functioning of the circulatory system of living beings, including plants. The screens hanging from the ceiling encourage the audience to lie down on the grass, face-up, to observe a video, whose absolute protagonists are earthworms, filmed with a macroscopic lens, to reveal every detail. In the act of lying on the ground to observe, perhaps for the first time, earthworms, that are so important for our survival on earth, 'Wormsdirect' direct the public to a different approach towards what is other than human (and slimy! ): starting from 'seeing', and not just looking, the earthworms. This simple act could, consequently, pushes us to 'see' everything else in the room: the water that flows in the pipes makes them warm as if they were living bodies, the pungent smell of dirt, the grass turning yellow, the humidity in the room. Lying on the ground is also a way to arouse a stronger closeness to the world of earthworms, the soil being their environment, through the sense of touch and smell. The intent is to invite the public to take this experience with them, starting in the exhibition space and continuing in the outside world. Indeed, 'Wormsdirect' incites to look at the potential of encounters between human and non-human beings as a way to learn 'to see' differently: taking care of the planet we depend on and the terrestrial beings that populate it, we could stimulate a different form of empathy towards the non-human world, and (why not?) that it can, finally, also change the relationships between us human beings through a deeper and stronger use of empathy.
Installation: 2 tonnes and half of fine topsoil, 36 square meters of turf, 85 meters of clear plastic tubes filled with water and glitters, 2 water pumps, 2 waste bins, 8 meters of filled fabric, HD flat screen 80 inches hanged from the ceiling at 2 m , sound.
