Writing (MA)
Ludovica Colacino
I'm an Italian visual artist, photographer, and writer based in London. I would describe my practice as documentarist as well as oriented towards fine-art; loosely poetic documentation of being.
I have exhibited with Lumen Studios in London and Margate - respectively for the exhibitions 'MXXXIV' and 'The Cosmic Sublime', where I showed my photobook 'The Interstellar Neighbourhood'. My writing appears in the RCA in-house magazine The Pluralist, NOIT - 5: bodies as in buildings with Flat Time House, O Sole Mio Magazine from Parasol Unit Foundation for Contemporary Art, and Artuner Magazine.
On the five weekly business-days, I am an Art Writer and Digital Content Editor for the hybrid contemporary art online platform and gallery Artuner.
As an art writer and visual artist, I frame my practice as a place of intersections allowing my
writing to exist alongside my photography as parallel practices, one never
taking over or trying to justify the other. In regard to topics, my work aims
to explore memory and the mind, the body, as well as concepts of familiarity and
belonging; these concepts often converge into autobiographical works exploring
my experiences and surroundings. I have often looked up to various
photographers and their images; Alec Soth, Rinko Kawauchi, and Teresa Eng
convey a certain romanticism that is familiar to fine art and that I have
strived to embrace for my practice. The nostalgia of family and the memories
tied to it, outline a constant romanticism within my work, whether it looks to
people, ideas, or celestial bodies.
Regardless of the constant connections to the tangible world, my research continued to gravitate
towards the more critical and conceptual end of visual arts. Alongside projects
on perception, belonging, and a kaleidoscopic contemplation of memory, I have
consistently oriented my curiosity towards research, critical theory on art and
emotional ethics, representation and violence. Perhaps it could be said that
the bookcase in my room is, too, a practice I cultivate: the books in it, as
they are next to one another, are visualisations of the various intersections
in my practice.
I can see my practice morphing and evolving more in the future while remaining anchored to
critical writing and photography. I know I will never forget the words of David
Campany, my dissertation tutor at the University of Westminster, saying that
it’s possible to be part of photography in many ways, and writing is one of
them.
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Framed as an autobiographical photobook, it observes the art of embroidery of the wedding trousseau, specifically in the Southern Italian region of Calabria during the 1900s, following the history of my great-grandmother, grandmother, and mother. This writing aims to guide the reader to look closely at the art of embroidery and its place in society. The first chapter, Grandmother investigates its practical aspect and the moving hand; the chapter Mother observes the household, and the final chapter, Daughter, leans heavily on my life experiences and the influences of the neighbourhood.
This project acts as a vessel of my mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother stories, which are bordered by research and writing on the socio-economic spheres, gender studies, financial disparities, and the politics of the household.
Although the project looks mostly at my family’s embroidery, I took into account other artists that have worked with relating topics. I discussed the artist Anna Trapani and her series Corpi Indocili, Sandy Orgel and her work Linen Closet, and Yin Xiuzhen and her sculpture Bookshelf N°7, one for each chapter, as they integrate with their discussions.
Ultimately, I used the research and making of this project to overcome my prejudice towards domestic work; the love and the dedication to the household seemed driven by patriarchy and had lost their warmth. It’s within this ambivalence that embroidery conserved its beauty: embroidery is a practice that made women artists in their own homes.
Medium:
Writing and photography
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If you were to expand Earth’s address, after ‘Solar System’ and before ‘Milky Way’, you’d have to mention the cosmic cloud our planet floats in – it’s called The Interstellar Neighbourhood, and it encloses the nearest stars to Earth. Among them, reside a few stars that are close enough for me to see my past in their light – past I have observed, and gathered in photographs to overcome the delay between the moment the light of the stars was radiated in the Universe and the moment it meets my eyes.
"This photobook is the result of the spatial awareness that I have developed as I grew up stargazing. It is a photographic map of my past that, at the same time, keeps me present — the stars are there, up above, stitching the outline of the interstellar neighbourhood."
Medium:
photobook
journey
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The body of a person could be considered like a map already: the face, the hands, gestures and habits could guide us into understanding the life experiences that person lived. For this project, however, I wanted to focus on the concept of memory underlining the geographical location the subject is from, because I wanted the viewer to understand how it could still condition the present of a person. Nevertheless, I didn't want to consider only the past, so I decided to use a picture in which the subject is projected to the future: we can see he's on a train, he has a working bag, a newspaper, and he's dressed as if he's going to the office. I decided to portray my father for this project because he has always been a traveler: he was born in Switzerland in a family of Italian immigrants, he grew up in the USA, and he eventually came back to Italy. Nowadays, he takes up to five flights a week for work.
For this project, also, I wanted to underline how we cannot tell where he's going in the near future: no elements in the picture can allow us to understand his destination.
With this picture I didn't want to represent a finished journey, but an on-going situation that leaves room to endless possibilities - bringing the whole concept of the project beyond the frame.
