Essere

ESSERE was a site-specific installation set in a dark, narrow passageway situated within the ancient heart of Trastevere in Rome at Vicolo del Bologna, 39.

The work, invited by the exuberant artist/curator/activist Andrea Fogli, was a collaboration with the monumental wisteria vine that dominates the ruin of a crumbling building. The chosen site became a dramatic setting wherein the elements of ESSERE magnified the quiet beauty of the existing elements surrounding the vine; the darkness and shadow, the decaying wall, the cobblestones, and ambient sounds.

The eye was first drawn to the enigmatic, silver silhouette of a She-Wolf reflecting the light, an historic apparition applied to a small patch of crumbling stucco, adjacent to the mysterious locked and broken door. Two serpentine forms of silver and green fabric entwined in counter clockwise spirals up and into the ascending tendrils, climbing gracefully from it’s massive base up to the roof of the building, seeking their own direction on high and mimicking the caduceus on the facade of the historic apothecary ‘Pharmacy of Santa Maria della Scala’.  A single mirror placed behind existing security bars reflected the viewer into the vicolo’s opposite scene, creating a mysterious depth seemingly from within.

Each evening at sunset, the vicolo was filled with the atmospheric sounds from Intero, a fragment of the life-long work of composer Walter Branchi, which accompanied the installation.