Secret Garden
Secret Garden è un paesaggio interiore (o giardino segreto) che si nasconde a prima vista ma che può essere scoperto da chi è capace di guardare oltre l’apparenza. Un concetto che parte dall’artista ma che vuole essere esteso e trasformato in un messaggio universale senza limiti temporali.
Il progetto parte da una raccolta di antiche lastre negative, raffiguranti ritratti femminili, abbinate a piccoli giardini collocati all’interno di una scatola nera.
Ogni donna recupera un nome e un’avventura, liberamente ispirata, grazie dall’immaginazione di scrittrici contemporanee invitate a prendere parte al progetto. Differenti per provenienza, formazione, espressione artistica, queste donne si distinguono nei campi della letteratura, musica, poesia, impegno politico e sociale, rendendo ogni racconto un diario personale estremamente attuale. Antichi ritratti di donne arrivate a noi senza ulteriori dettagli su vicende biografiche ci fanno viaggiare su un doppio binario fatto di tempo reale e immaginazione, facendo decadere l’esigenza di una lettura chiara e fedele ancorata all’immagine.
Nell’accostarsi all’opera, lo spettatore può sbirciare dentro l’intimità di queste donne, può leggere frammenti di un’esistenza, seguire i fili individuali intrecciati a un percorso collettivo verso una maggiore libertà ed emancipazione.
Secret Garden involves the viewer into an intimate journey through the reinterpretation of archival materials coming from the last century and collected by Alessandra Calò. During the years the artist has been collected glass negatives representing unknown women portraits. As first step of the project Alessandra Calò entrusts each negative to a female writer asking to give voice to the stranger depicted in the glass negative. While the writer composes her short story, the artist builds a small dry garden to be inserted into a black box. The box becomes a device the viewer uses to approach each portrait, becoming a sort of custodian of old and new memories. So, each Secret Garden woman recovers a name and a freely inspired adventure composed by the imagination of a writer. Also singers and poets have been involved in the project. Each of these pieces represents a discovery: an internal landscape that hides at first sight but can be discovered by those who are able to look beyond transparency; a personal diary the viewer can discover, almost peeping into the intimacy of these women.
Le autrici di Secret Garden
Abir Soleiman, Alessandra Sarchi, Alessandra Trevisan, Amy Ewald, Andreina Bertelli, Angela Baraldi, Anna Toscano, Antonella Bukovaz, Antonella Ossorio, Antonia Monticelli, Beatrice Baruffini, Benedetta Valdesalici, Cecilia Dazzi, Chiara Lev Mazzetti, Chiara Mezzalama, Christiane Courbon, Daniela Brogi, Elena Alfonsi, Elena Codeluppi, Emmanuela Carbè, Faezeh Mardani, Filiz Elasu, Flavia Fedele, Francesca Amati, Francesca Genti, Francesca Matteoni, Francesca Romana Stabile, Francesca Serafini, Francesca Viola Mazzoni, Giulia Maria Falzea, Irene Russo, Isabel Prehuil, Klaus Miser, Lara Siscar, Laura Pugno, Letizia Cesarini, Linda Ovena, Manuela Dago, Mara Redeghieri, Marcia Tambutti Allende, Mari Accardi, Maria de Muns, Maria Grazia Guidetti, Mariana Rondon, Maria Teresa Grillo, Marilena Renda, Marta Cuscunà, Melissa Magnani, Melissa Panarello, Olenka Carrasco, Oriana Mariotti, Paola Berselli, Rachele Bastreghi, Rosana Pastor, Rossella Bianchi, Sandra Fernandez, Silvia Calderoni, Silvia La Ferrara, Silvia Salvagnini, Tiziana Frosali, Ughetta Lacatena, Valentina Diana, Veronica Costanza Ward, Violeta Medina, Yuksel Budak
chiudi
gli occhi tieni sempre
gli occhi chiusi
e non vedranno nulla,
sarai in salvo
(Ada ©Laura Pugno, 2019)
Secret Garden, 2021
©Danilo Montanari Editore
Cardboard box, cm 15,5×20
27 photos, 27 texts printed on vellum paper, english and italian version
Limited edition of 60
57 numbered and signed from 1 to 57
3 numbered and signed from I to III, containing original calotype
First Edition, 2018
This book is the result of the artistic work of Alessandra Calò, who gathers and saves from oblivion a series of negatives depicting portraits of women without any biographical indication.
Inspired by herbariums and by the constant search for themes relevant to the “feminine,” the artist creates arboreal visions through those negatives, symbolizing the secret garden hidden inside of each one of us. Each portrait acquires a new identity thanks to the involvement of contemporary female authors who were invited by the artist to write a short story inspired by one of those unknown figures.
The book is an intimate diary with great present-day relevance, made up of reality and imagination, where the emphasis is not on a clear and faithful reading anchored in the image, but rather social themes tied to the female figure and to the evolution of its changing condition through time.
The structure of the book mirrors the sense of the project, hiding gardens, symbols of the feminine universe, within double-bound pages. In its limited edition (ten copies), a box holds the book and one of the original negatives, depicting one of those anonymous women, portrayed in a garden.
Erik Kessels pens the introduction, considering the book «a unique work, which leaves to everyone the possibility of imagining its conclusion.»
First edition 2018 (SOLD-OUT)
book, cm 16×20
108 double pages
English and italian version
Limited edition of 100
The structure of the book mirrors the sense of the project, hiding gardens, symbols of the feminine universe, within double-bound pages. In its limited edition (ten copies), a box holds the book and one of the original negatives, depicting one of those anonymous women, portrayed in a garden.