Foris (forest, outside), 2021
Fresco, 20000 x 3000 cm
In occasion of Städelschule Absolventenausstell”
The Whistle”, Frankfurtung
In 2020, in collaboration with the residency program Dolomiti Contemporanee and the Center of studies of the Alpine territory from the University of Padua, I undertook research on the migration of animals and plants along the slopes of the Dolomite mountains.
Forests have always been places of move: the Latin word “Foris”, from which the name forest derives, indicates for many scholars a place of passage, a corridor between human and divine life. Today plants and animals move a lot, changing altitudes and ecosystems due to anthropogenic abandonment, environmental disturbances and the advancement of temperatures.
I started my study by placing a trail camera near the forest of Borca di Cadore, tracking, for more than a year, the movements of the animals going up the mountain. From these images I created a fresco for the Städelschule’s Absolventen Ausstellung.
The fresco technique, as it was done in ancient times, physically joined the skin of the exhibition space and the pigments became part of it. The result was an immersive installation, inside a place of passage of the building, thus as the corridor.
The deers that i phtographed and met duringthe residency for months,m wnader at eye level, among olenader bshes and agave plants. A fox and two cats try toescape through a round windiw in the celling and then plunge back into the greemery.
The plant species i painted ae actually foreign to the Dolomites’ environment Oleander, for example, grws in the warmer regions of Southern Europe as do agaves, which grow in subtropical climates.r.
