The title Pachamama Concrete is a play on words, a metaphor for a place.
The word Pachamama, which in archaic Incan culture means Mother Earth, is intended to underline the link with the original principle of creation, with the nourishing mother who gives life. The pivotal element of the project is in fact the Goddess Ceres, dear to the ancient Romans and symbol of fertility and regeneration. The Goddess saw her origin in Corviale, a suburb of Rome, not far from the temple dedicated to her by the Arvali monks.
Concrete, on the other hand, alludes to the almost one-kilometre-long residential complex built in the late 1970s by architect Mario Fiorentino, which over the years has become a symbol of the failure of housing policies. Concrete is therefore the cement with which the building was constructed, but also a reference to the concreteness and resilience of the women who inhabit it.
The project Pachamama Concrete by Guendalina Salini was born during a residency held as part of the MagiC Carpets European platform, during which the artist undertook extensive research in the western suburbs of the city, in the Corviale district. The artist conducts a work of listening to the place, trying to go beyond the stereotypical image of the modern suburb and return to a circular and mutual conception of time and space. All the works on show at AlbumArte highlight a dual contrasting aspect that refers to both the fragility and the strength of the neighbourhood. Agile and surprising, haunting and mingling, untamed and nomadic, primitive and wild are some of the adjectives that the artist associates with the large pen drawings made during his residency.
Guendalina Salini creates a sound walk through the buildings of Corviale accompanied by a track constructed with the voices of the neighbourhood’s inhabitants. The audio, created in collaboration with sound designer Marco Stefanelli, thus becomes the fil rouge connecting the exhibition route. The exhibition also features a video evocative of the immanence and transcendence of the place, with original music by Federico Pascucci and performances by Giulia Anita Bari, Carla González, Ambra Chiara Michelangeli, Federico Pascucci and Marco Zenini. Through sound installations, videos and drawings, the artist leads us to question our political, cultural and moral reality, exploring its limits.
Ph. ©Alessandra Trucillo Courtesy Albumarte
