Relational Architectures

The exhibition is the result of an artist’s residency won through participation in the fourth edition of the ArtRise prize, designed specifically to support a project the artist was experimenting with, Weaving History, which she was able to complete in Ivrea.

Like an anthropologist, in July Anastasia Moro lived in Ivrea, taking part in community life whilst observing, documenting and photographing, exploring the Olivetti sites recognised by UNESCO as World Heritage Sites, gathering information and taking photographs: details, objects, corners of the city.

The idea is to make the invisible visible: relational architectures, that is, those bonds which today can redefine places of work and memory, true bastions of human resilience. The artist achieves this through a technique that is both digital and manual. The black-and-white photographs are cut out by hand and interwoven, two or three at a time, as in a weaving process, interspersed with strips of mirrored paper, until they take the form of unique works.

Through this painstaking process of cutting and weaving, Anastasia Moro recounts the slow and natural formation of places and the relationships between people and machines. Fragments of time and pieces of life merge, bringing the centuries closer and weaving them together right up to the present day.

It is the Relational Architectures that build the bridge between past and present: with resilient perseverance, each of us - whether a mere passer-by or a resident - is called upon to weave the history of this heritage left to Ivrea, seeking points of connection to strengthen, renew and extend the values of such an important legacy.