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«Prendere coscienza comporta, come ci ha insegnato
Édouard Glissant, tremare: sentire che siamo parte
del problema che vogliamo risolvere. E, pertanto, capire
che non ci sarà alcun cambiamento possibile che
non implichi una mutazione dei nostri propri processi
di soggettivazione politica, dei nostri modi di produzione,
di consumo, di riproduzione, di nominazione, di
relazione, delle nostre modalità di rappresentare, di
desiderare, di amare. Prendere coscienza è farsi carico
del fatto che il nostro proprio corpo vivo e desiderante
è l’unica tecnologia sociale che può portare a
termine il cambiamento» (1).

This thesis project originates from a moment of uncertainty. From the difficulty in understanding our time, and, above all, from the challenge of figuring out how my body and my artistic action can fit within it.

What is the point of making art when the historical period we are living through in the West seems overwhelmed by a form of generalized impotence in the face of the events happening all around us, at an accelerated and relentless pace?

From climate change to the pandemic, from the war in Ukraine to the nuclear threat, to the growing support for far-right movements in Europe, this whirlwind of "bad news" is making us "fat" (2): we are no longer able to metabolize their emotional power and process them. Everything that happens seems out of our reach, too far beyond our control as individual beings, contributing to a growing sense of disillusionment that characterizes our time. We have become unable to let what is happening move us, a tired society, despite—or because of—the comfort we are immersed in and the abundance of means, stimuli, and information at our disposal (3).

To fight this tendency, we must resist the fatigue of the performance-driven self, a fatigue that isolates and detaches, that of the exhausted "I". We must (re)learn a new form of attention, allowing ourselves to be permeated by fatigue born from availability. Fatigue that comes from pausing and lingering to learn how to see.

Now more than ever, it is crucial to reclaim control over our lives as an essential condition for survival. To do so, we must, first and foremost, return to the land to bring back the historical memory that sees the inhabitants as active subjects, bearers of a consciousness of place, dynamic cultures, knowledge, and identities (4). We must do this starting from our living bodies, positioning ourselves clearly and becoming aware that our privilege within society is a tool we can use to subvert its rules.

One of my privileges is being a Westerner, with an academic background in the arts.
I want to use this privilege to propose an artistic practice that becomes life itself. A practice that walks on the margins, making itself interdisciplinary. One that shifts the focus from itself to the viewer, making them a participant, a subject. One that becomes pedagogical, serving as a tool to (re)learn how to see and (re)inhabit places. An artistic practice that is not elitist but capable of speaking to everyone. An artistic practice that becomes a political and social action.

(1) P. B. Preciado, The Reasons to Be Optimist, Internazionale, December 7, 2022, (accessed February 5, 2023).
(2) B.-C. Han, The Society of Fatigue, Rome, Nottetempo, 2020.
(3) Ibid.
(4) M. Alberto, The Territorial Principle, Turin, Bollati Boringhieri, 2020.