THE UBIQUITY ROOM
- a dedication to Rita Finamore -
When I first thought about what I could produce for my FMP, I focused on myself and what type of feelings were prevalent at that point of my experience. I felt very happy and proud of myself for being able to move out from my country, my family and my comfort zone at the age of 19. But I felt also melancholic about my past. I still love my roots, I still love Italy and my family and friends back there, and I often feel like I would love to be able to be there and here, at the same time. What If I could be in more places, exist in two locations? I decided to showcase this feeling through an exhibition curated by myself around the concept of ubiquity.
I wanted to explore the aspects of the developing and directing of a fashion based art project, so to link to my choice of education in university. I want to explore this art project through a specific environment/mood so to work on a final piece that could summarise how art and fashion are colliding nowadays.
I studied all the aspects would have had to cover if I really wanted to consider the curation of an exhibition as a final project, and the most difficult aspect for me it was to be able to find artists that wanted to show some art pieces of theirs and find a link in between all of them. I've been talking with a specialist about it. I had different feelings about this choice: there was the idea to set up the exhibition in a virtual space and that was interesting but also very difficult as I never worked on virtual reality.
I realised ubiquity was definitely a feeling that was too personal.
T H E R O M E T R I P
S K E T C H B O O K
WEEK 2.
11 MARCH 2019
School trip in Rome. Use of sketchbook//notebook.
T H E - B I G - F I N D I N G
I would date this finding 13 March 2019, around 3.30 PM.
During the school trip in Rome, I was walking down the steps of the famous Piazza di Spagna staircase and I found a bunch of papers on the floor, collected them, and read through them. I had found the main character of my FMP: miss Rita Finamore.
This lady wanted me to find her papers so I could bring them back to London with me and give her the possibility of being in two places at the same time, and have an identity that will never disappear.
I then start to think I could create a room just for her. A room in which I could show the finding as relics and Rita as a mystic entity. Maybe using the shopping list I found as a will I need to respect just for her, baking what she wanted to bake: a piece of bread.
M O O D B O A R D
// AMALIA ULMAN works on the creation of different identities // ILIA & EMILIA KABAKOV the utopian projects they work on magic realism / creation of environments / sketches and models in small scale // CINDY SHERMAN untitled film stills / specific identities that reminds the spectator to some movies // DIANE ARBUS photography / the twins / something that looks the same but there are little differences // MARTIN PARR contrasts / colours / saturation / elements that are symbolic for English culture // RACHEL WHITEREAD solids / casts of negative / positive // YOKO ONO half a room / the concept of cutting things ton have two half // GORDON MOTTA-CLARK 1/2 house / cutting half of things / circular section // DEXTER DALWOOD technique / specific environment created through collages // HOWORTH IAN photos are his vision of London as an exotic place // GREGOR SHNEIDER photos of space with window and tables // DAN GRAHAM two adjacent pavilions / mirrors on the outside // GELITIN KINOSAAL external part of his installation // LOS CARPENTEROS show room / structure in frames // MIKE NELSON clown room specific mood // POLLY NOR empty skins hanging / identities // JEFF WALL photos of rooms // SANDY SKOGLUNG chromaticism in rooms // GRACE WALES BONNER symphonies of water and spirit a rhythmic composition // KAZMIR MALEVIC' suprematism / spirituality / iconography //
I thought I really had found the way to make her live in two places at the same time, as saints do.
She would be so grateful... if only she knew...
WEEK 4 / 5
TUESDAY 26 MARCH 2019 - working on the first sheet -
TUESDAY 2 APRIL 2019 - working on second and third sheets -
I started designing possible environments that could be seen as an altar in her honour. The shopping list became then THE document in which the faithful people could pray on // THE SHOPPING LIST IS HER WILL //
At this point of my research and initial ideas, I realised that creating a room it's not necessarily interesting as living in it or as the presence that the room have. I started to change my mind about the room inasmuch it wasn't all about the room but about the person living in it. Rita had to have something different from a normal human being, I had to find the special character in her. Maybe I could see her as another myself ?
Rome is the capital of Italy, but it's mostly the Church Capital. The quantity of religious items in the city is countless. In my house in Italy so many religious icons are hanging on the walls. I then decided this would be my new starting point.
I C O N O M A N I A // H A G I O M A N I A // S E B A S T O M A N I A
Obsession with icons or portraits // Mania for sainthood // Religious insanity
This is my house in Italy. I want to reconnect this project with the repetition of the representation of saints: the ICONOMANIA.
Starting with this new route, I'm doing a research on Saint Rita ( from Rita Finamore ). I'll take her as a main personification of the room and I'll work on specific elements of symbolism that reconnects to her biography: a FOREHEAD WOUND, a ROSE, BEES and a GRAPE VINE.
WEEK 7
EARLY LIFE
Rita was born in the year 1381 in the village of Roccaporena, near Cascia , Italy . Her parents, Antonio and Amata Lotti, considered her birth a very special gift from God, for Rita was born to them as they were already advancing in age. As a young girl Rita frequently visited the convent of the Augustinian Nuns in Cascia and dreamed of one day joining their community. Her parents, however, had promised her in marriage, according to the custom of the day, to Paolo Mancini, a good man of strong and impetuous character. Rita accepted her parents’ decision, resolved to see this as God’s will for her.
MARRIED LIFE
The young couple was joined in marriage and soon twin boys were born to them. Rita found herself occupied with the typical concerns of a wife, mother, and homemaker of Roccaporena, while Paolo was employed as a watchman for the town. In Cascia, as elsewhere, a great rivalry existed between two popular political factions, the Guelphs, and the Ghibellines. As a minor official of the town, Paolo often found himself drawn into the conflict, and the strain that this caused probably accounts for the tension, which he sometimes brought into the Mancini household. By her prayer, patience, and affection, however, Rita was able to ease the stress and worry her husband experienced, but she was not able to shield him altogether from the dangers to which society exposed him.
DEATH OF HUSBAND AND SONS
One day as Paolo was returning home from work he was ambushed and killed. The pain which this unexpected and violent death inflicted upon Rita was only compounded by the fear she felt that her two teenage sons, moved by the unwritten law of the “vendetta,” would seek to avenge their father’s death. Rita’s only recourse was to prayer and persuasion. As it happened, the death of both boys from natural causes a short time later removed them from physical and spiritual danger. Despite her great burden she could still thank God that they had died in peace, free of the poison of murder to which hatred and revenge might have otherwise drawn them.
PEACEMAKER
Now alone in the world and without family responsibilities, Rita once more turned her thoughts to the desired vocation of her youth, that of joining the Augustinian Nuns of Saint Mary Magdalene Monastery. Some of the religious of the community, however, were relatives of the members of the political faction considered responsible for Paolo’s death, and so as not to tempt the harmony of the convent, Rita’s request for admission was denied. Fortunately, she was not to be easily dissuaded from following what she knew to be God’s plan for her. She implored her three patron saints — John the Baptist, Augustine, and Nicholas of Tolentino to assist her, and she set about the task of establishing peace between the hostile parties of Cascia with such success that her entry into the monastery was assured.
THE GIFT OF THE THORN
At the age of thirty-six Rita pledged to follow the ancient Rule of Saint Augustine. For the next forty years she gave herself wholeheartedly to prayer and works of charity, striving especially to preserve peace and harmony among the citizens of Cascia. With a pure love she wanted more and more to be intimately joined to the redemptive suffering of Jesus, and this desire of hers was satisfied in an extraordinary way. One day when she was about sixty years of age, she was meditating before an image of Christ crucified, as she was long accustomed to doing. Suddenly a small wound appeared on her forehead, as though a thorn from the crown that encircled Christ’s head had loosed itself and penetrated her own flesh. For the next fifteen years she bore this external sign of stigmatization and union with the Lord. In spite of the pain she constantly experienced, she offered herself courageously for the physical and spiritual well being of others. During the last four years of her life Rita was confined to bed and was able to eat so little that she was practically sustained on the Eucharist alone. She was, nevertheless, an inspiration to her sisters in religion and to all who came to visit her, by her patience and joyful disposition despite her great suffering.
THE ROSE
One of those who visited her some few months before her death — a relative from her hometown of Roccaporena — was privileged to witness firsthand the extraordinary things wrought by Rita’s requests. When asked whether she had any special desires, Rita asked only that a rose from the garden of her parents’ home be brought to her. It was a small favor to ask, but quite an impossible one to grant in the month of January! Nevertheless, on returning home the woman discovered, to her amazement, a single brightly-colored blossom on the bush where the nun said it would be. Picking it, she returned immediately to the monastery and presented it to Rita who gave thanks to God for this sign of love. Thus, the saint of the thorn became the saint of the rose, and she whose impossible requests were granted her became the advocate of all those whose own requests seem impossible as well. As she breathed her last, Rita’s final words to the sisters who gathered around her were, “Remain in the holy love of Jesus. Remain in obedience to the holy Roman Church. Remain in peace and fraternal charity.”
DEATH
Having faithfully and lovingly responded to God’s many invitations to her in the course of her seventy-six years, Rita returned to God in peace on May 22, 1457. Her body, which has remained incorrupt over the centuries, is venerated today in the shrine of Cascia, which bears her name. Her feast is observed on the anniversary of her death, 22 May.
C O L O R P A L E T T E
FOREHEAD WOUND // ROSE // BEES // GRAPE VINE // THORNS
W E E K 8
First process of making the walls of the room. Using the colours of the palette I coloured 9 wood panels.
This is the screen I'll use to screen print all over the painted walls
And this is the final outcome of how all the walls will look like
Rita is now becoming much more than just the main character of the room: the way her room is painted gives us the idea of this maniacal person that habits it. Rita is scared of disappearance. She wants to live forever unforgotten as saints do. She covers everything with presences from whom she feels she can get eternal life. She covers everything with honey as a long-term storage system. Rita uses this method to store her whole life.
TUESDAY 7 MAY 2019
The panels are now ready to be used to build the final room. Some builders are helping to build a structure of external beams that will help to make the room a solid space. The structure has been created outside the studio and it's gonna be brought in the Hyde this week.
I'm now waiting the frame to be ready so to be able to fit the walls, the roof and the floor.
The construction team helped me on the making of the room. All the walls and floor has been secured following health and safety rules.
V I D E O M A K I N G
I thought at the room as a space where the audience can feel a certain mood and sensation. I've been editing a video so to guide them through all the main elements of the concept.
ROSES // GRAPE VINE // BEES // HONEY // GOD PRESENCE // SAINTHOOD
II've been collecting videos of interesting environments I found myself in during the last few weeks. Following a long research about other material that I could have included in the video. I wanted to be a loop, direct, conseptual and meditative video of a minute so to give everybody the time to watch it from beginning to end and leaving some time for the audience to think and meditate.
There's not an exact interpretation of the video. I wanted the people to feel free to imagine and meditate on it.
At the first stage I followed with the images a sound I found on the defaults ones of the software I was using. I wasn't satisfied about it. The use of a track made by others for my video felt like the wrong thing, as it wasn't personal enough for the standard I wanted to follow.
Thank to a friend of mine, a music specialist, I had the chance to create my own soundtrack. I wanted it to be more clamorous. And so I did.
When I saw the building in its form I liked the rough looking of the outside. It was so contrasty with the inside that is instead very tranquil and organised. I decided then to keep the neutral colours of the outside adding canvas curtains on both the entrances. I found the ambivalence between the outside and the inside looking a very strong point on the project concept itself.
Lot of light was still coming through because of the gross grain of the canvas and so I created a double curtain that could make the space darker and that could match with inside of the room.
I found this detail a very important adding to the installation.
Now. that the space was ready, was the time to visualise where I wanted to use the furniture I got as an inside installation. the first idea was to position the furniture opposite to the corner of the room, but once I say it in there I wasn't happy with the result. The furniture, that supposed to be the main element of the interns, was not visible enough from the entrances. I then decided to position the whole "altar" on the corner itself. so I could cite the orthodox culture of positioning sacred icons right on the corners of the rooms.
The first idea about the lighting was to crop out of the top corner of the room a hole where I wanted to position a spot light pointing straight to the table. The idea didn't work out cause of the difficulties of the making keeping the safety rules.
On the other hand the dark environment let me understand the importance of having a ceiling in tarpaulin, so to let the light come through creating a really interesting contrast between cold and warm. The warmth of the room's colors and the cold blue light.
I found that the lighting resulted very soft and suggestive. On the other hand it wasn't enough to actually get to appreciate the environment. to solve this problem I'm thinking to employ two spotlights directing to the "altar".
