Schiava di Roma

In this project I’ve explored the gripping situation of Italy, my home Country, known worldwide as a treasure chest of beauty and nowadays on the verge of moral and material collapse. The dramatic contrast between the glorious past and the present decline is represented by the use of black and white and by female figures recalling Roman and Greek classical statues distorted in a struggle against tying and stifling drapes.

The artworks’ titles are excerpts from the Italian national anthem. Out of their usual context, these words lose their rhetorical status, gaining new and unexpected meanings. Esperia, the ancient Greek name of Italy meaning the ‘land of the setting sun’, gives its name to the whole series suggesting the idea of decline.

The choice of pastels convey an extra layer of meaning: the vulnerability of the pure pigment requires particular attention to be preserved, thus resembling the fragility of the immense Italian heritage, as dramatically highlighted by the recent collapse of a Roman building in Pompeii