While waiting for Wales to open up post-Covid, I went back to Morecambe to leave book #2. And I also sneaked to see if book #1 was still there or in the bin (which would have been just so so sad…) It was a bit difficult to leave book #2 because the Hotel was closed, of course, but the bar area was open as a takeaway so I had first a coffee and an ice cream and then I went back to leave the book on the table next to the sugar and spoons… So, I spent part of the day walking aro

In a way or another, we are getting to this end of this academic year. And what a year this has been! For the past week I have been focusing on the book and on writing in general. I had a tutorial [#12] with KS last Tue and we just checked where I am at. I am also aware that last week was 6 MAY: the anniversary of the earthquake and one year from CONSERVATION… I felt off. Many thoughts and memories to go through. I have accepted to participate in the Orton Writing Group Proje

There seems no other way to describe where I am at than: punto della situazione. We are still in COVID, we still don’t know what is going to happen next, we all believe there is no going to be a final year exhibition, we are going to probably be graded by the work down up to isolation and so on and so forth. I have been making some stuff in Papier–mâché, I have been trying to create maps in different ways. I am not happy with what I made. I bought some more material because I

I have been working on the documents supporting my FMP and the project in light of – I hope – a tutorial with KS nxt week. I have reorganised my self-assessment and Learning Outcomes document in order to be able to start writing when I have a bit of a clearer idea of what I am going to make. I have double-checked the list of what is supposed to be on the blog and it seems that I am hitting the target. I have amended and will upload here, the updated version of the timeline wh

Well, this in my original plans would have been the week to decide what to do and what to create for the FMP. We still don’t know what is going to happen re. college and the final exhibition, not to mention how we are going to be graded at the end of this multi-faceted year. Still, I am here trying to make it all work, as are my colleagues doing in their isolation. First, the sad notes: the book is stuck and left to how it was during the holidays and when I experienced the sy

yap… over a month. My very first day was Friday 13th and today is Easter Monday. Last week has been hard. Emotionally and spiritually. I have a lot of questions re. the futility of this role of the artist while there are people out there who help others, who care, who are doctors, nurses, carers, ambulance drivers. Not artists. Still, I have tried to do my part, esp as a student. So I have: constantly updated my confessional podcast on here: https://open.spotify.com/show/5Nfl

We all have doubts in our practice and to me, practice has become a way to self-enquiry. PL said that that could be seen in any of my pieces already, but it was I who did not see that. This blessed time of silence and repose and stillness gives me time to understand the reasons why I am doing what I am doing. Especially thinking that the whole idea of my FMP was about “DO YOU SEE ME”: so, now, in this lockdown, do you see me? How does it feel to be here, not seen, and not cre

Do you know where the days have gone? Because I can’t remember. We all know what has happened in the world, so I am not going to describe this on here. I have been in self-isolation since Friday 13 March so today is my 18th day. I have been and still am in a strange rollercoaster journey, emotionally, and now I am trying to adapt to new rhythms. I know, all this sounds like the discovery of hot water! We are all feeling the same, we are all over the place, we are all stressed

I am back at college after London and after my solitary writing residency in Morecambe for 5 days [bliss…]. In the meantime I have: chosen the university: York. I have chosen York for many different reasons, but mainly because I need to leave, I need challenges, I need to be challenged, I need to meet and talk with different people, I need to see different places, and to be stimulated by different things. I am aware of the fears connected with leaving Blackburn as an academic

I write this after being back home for just a day. I feel the need of writing this now, in order to critically review the experience before I start forgetting details. organisation From the very first exchange of emails, their documentation and their website, I could see that things were not up to a professional standard, or at least a standard I am used to, hopeful for, and that I would definitely offer should I be the curator / manager of a gallery. And a professional stand

Before the detailed feedback and write up of the experience, the self-enquiry and final thoughts on the whole experience, I want to park here some of the pictures I have taken of the process, starting with the [ingenious] system I used to hang the paper since nothing was available: And here are some of the pictures I have taken along the way, starting from yesterday: And then moving on to today: And this is now the “final piece”: #cryptgallery #research #abstract #london #res

It’s Thursday afternoon, and everything is almost ready for me to go. I don’t actually even know how I got to this moment, where my large suitcase is full, on the floor in my living room, waiting for me to grab it, jump on a coach, and wake up tomorrow morning in London. But from tomorrow, for 3 days, I will be doing / performing / making / showing … my before nothing in a gallery in London, at The Crypt. There have been back and forth of emails and plans, and cancellation of

I have written, created a mind map, and paced up and down this library trying to make sense of my ideas. And then, while flicking through some books and jotting down more ideas, I have come up with what I believe is the perfect synthesis of my project: before nothing Because the viewer sits and watches a white canvas turning into a painting / drawing but which is Nothing until the artist says that it is finished; Because the Artist, as human-in-a-cage to be observed and analy

I am still looking for a name to give to the project, a brief definition, unique and personal but universal at the same time. And I believe that not having the “perfect wording” yet means that I haven’t defined nor circumscribed what I am intending to do, to a T. In the meantime, I am linking here the two videos I made yesterday, this time not using the headphones but still listening to the music. YouTube silenced one of the songs, so you might hear just a couple of minutes o

I showed tutor PL the last two works / experiments I did as in drawing on music. He told me that “those are something different” and he noticed how the energy and mark-making are sustained throughout the pieces. He noticed also depth, width, the human element of the marks. We discussed synesthesia and my “feeling” some of the words by means of pitches and noises in my head (tinned tuna to me is a squeaking noise in my gums). We talked Pollock and de Kooning, Europe and the US

See following the material, documents, articles, websites, reviews, and thesis I found online re. performance drawing and which I am using for my research. AAVV, (2019). Behind the Scenes: Ram Samocha from Draw to Perform. Copperdollar Studios [online]. [Viewed on 29.01.2020]. Available from https://copperdollarstudios.co.uk/behind-the-scenes-ram-samocha-from-draw-to-perform/ Barker, G., (2017) Performance drawing. Drawing [online]. 7 December 2017. [Viewed 28.01.2020] Availa

This was the place where, in a handful of weeks, I would have opened my exhibition CONSERVATION. The very first thought was drenched in pain. Reading the first posts on Facebook, the sharing of drama, the overflowing of emojis, the racist comments on what is going to built there instead, the uncountable “do you remember…”, the race to crown which memory is the best one, mine or yours?… all of the above took me straight back to 1976, to the days and weeks after the earthquake.

I set off with 5 of my pieces in plaster and went there. I chose the pieces carefully and I went there. I made sure that my camera was fully charged, the laptop ready, the sun hidden behind some clouds, that I had all possible needed connections, cables, phones, wifi. That the coffee was warm, that I had some food with me; and I went there. I went there. It’s incredible how the mind plays tricks on you: I cannot remember things I did or places I was in the company of some peo