Moira Ricci

Dove il cielo è più vicino

 

I started working on Dove il cielo è più vicino in 2014, when I lived for a long period of time in my family house, in the Maremma countryside. That prolonged contact with the earth and with the peasants, the ones that still exist, made me clearly perceive how final is mankind’s estrangement from nature. I noticed how weak is my generation’s connection with the earth, the sky and everything that nature gives us: a very different relationship compared to the one that previous generations had. And yet, I started feeling more connected.

I made Dove il cielo è più vicino over different moments: during one action I created rings of fire in the fields; I shot a series of photographs of windowless and doorless farmhouses, so mute and blind; I imagined the story of a harvesting tractor turning into a spaceship, which might allow us to perhaps leave for somewhere else, a place where we might find the sense of hope we need to start over again.

On this occasion, I decided to continue this work with a series of portraits of peasants gazing into the sky. I wanted their eyes to act as a connection between the earth and the sky, where the latter represents a far-away place of mystery and hope; where, since the beginning of time, humans seek for help.

Moira Ricci

Moira Ricci’s project is part of the group exhibition 2017. Altri paesi, curated by Diane Dufour, Elio Grazioli and Walter Guadagnini.

Starting from the historical example of the “village” captured by Cesare Zavattini and Paul Strand in Un paese, Tommaso Bonaventura, Aleix Plademunt and Moira Ricci were invited to elaborate, through their original productions, what that “village” has become as a metaphor, a paradigm, an ideal map of the whole world, of living together, of how things are or should be. The San Domenico Cloisters host these personal interpretation of today’s Un paese.

Moira Ricci (born in Orbetello, Italy, in 1977) grew up in the Maremma countryside, and has always stayed loyal to her cultural heritage, studying its ancient traditions, analyzing its symbols and meanings, and creating new stories around them. Moira Ricci prefers to work using tools such as cameras, videos and installations, recovering old pictures from family albums and small private archives, collecting visual and audio testimonies, recording personal childhood memories, ultimately assigning them new meanings. Her work, based on careful digital manipulation of previously existing images and on filming common daily-life scenes, results in an intense effect of perceived realism. In her stories, often autobiographical in nature, she connects her own individual identity to the community she belongs to, studying her relationship with the territory, mixing modern technology and folkloristic imagery. Her works have been on show in several solo and collective exhibits, including Altri Tempi, Altri Miti – 16° Quadriennale D’Arte (Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Rome, 2016), L‘altro sguardo. Fotografe Italiane 1965-2015, by curator Raffaella Perna (La Triennale, Milan, 2016), Capitale terreno (Museo di Fototografia Contemporanea – Spazio Oberdan, Milan, 2015), Autoritratti. Iscrizione del femminile nell’arte italiana contemporanea (Mambo- Museo d’arte moderna di Bologna, Bologna, 2013) and Realtà Manipolate. Come le immagini ridefiniscono il mondo, by curators M. Marangoni, F. Nori, B. Rogers, L. Sabau (Strozzina-Palazzo Strozzi, Florence, 2009).

MAY 6
Teatro Cavallerizza – 11.30pm
2017: altri paesi
Diane Dufour, Elio Grazioli, Walter Guadagnini talk with Tommaso Bonaventura, Aleix Plademunt, Moira Ricci

 

MAY 7
Chiostri di San Domenico – 11am
2017: altri paesi
Guided tour with Tommaso Bonaventura, Aleix Plademunt and Moira Ricci

 

JUNE 3 
chiostri di San Domenico – 11am
Guided tour with Elio Grazioli

Exhibition Venue

Chiostri di San Domenico
via Dante Alighieri, 11
42121 Reggio Emilia

1

Opening Hours

inaugural days
May 5 › 7am-11pm
May 6 and 7 › 10am-11pm
from May 12 to July 9 Friday/Sunday
Friday › 6pm-11pm
Saturday › 10am-11pm
Sunday and holiday › 10am-8pm

Category
Chiostri di San Domenico