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The smell is of stone and time. Light filters in from above, settling on marble, velvet and wood, flying in spirals of dust.

The silence is respectful, like in a waiting room. Something is about to be born on the first floor of the Basilica Palladiana in Vicenza.

Matter expresses itself in a succession of blossoming roots and wombs, of generations that pass on the urgency to create in order to protect and to build in order to welcome.

And in the creative gesture, whether it be art, architecture or everyday life, we continue to give shape to what we love.

Origin

Mater Materia – Women Artists for a Visionary Future is part of the Dedalo Minosse international architecture competition: a collective dialogue between art, architecture and circularity that restores matter to its most authentic, generative and vital dimension.

There is something about this exhibition that concerns us, as humans and as women.

To understand it, you need to enter timidly, on tiptoe, raise your chin towards the vaults to marvel at them, then descend along the tapestries to the mosaics on the floor, beneath our humble feet.

We too are matter that breathes, feels emotions and changes. It is exhausted and renewed.

Seeds in transit, we land with the wind.

Nine artists – Paola Greggio, Pina Inferrera, Marica Moro, Daniela Pellegrini, Antonella Quacchia, Silvia Rastelli, Ludovica Sitajolo, Chiara Vellini and Giuditta Vettese – describe matter as origin and then memory, a tool that proudly preserves human repetition.

The works are elaborations of transparencies and nuances, of metal and glass, of fibres, stones and scraps that relate to space and people as living beings, still changing.

They can become – generate – something else, even when they seem to come to an end.

Each artist interprets and expresses matter as a mother who originates, shapes and, ultimately, gives.

The exhibition explores transformation, wounds and the movement of one’s own body as part of nature, which flows, regenerates or remains. Each work becomes a possible mirror in which to recognise one’s own femininity and strength.

The perceived message has the power of a whisper from the forest, which you feel first on your face rather than in your ears. At the same time, it is a clear voice in the dignity of the sculptures, red bricks and supports that make the future a path to reflect on together.

Bones and caresses, like the tenacity of creative perpetuation, the welcoming of all beings and the maternal care for the continuity of the world.

The correspondence between contemporary form and the historical memory of space becomes a home for the emotions of the viewer.

It is an exhibition that tells a story and is experienced, that can be touched and imagined.

Like a heartbeat, like the future.

Gesture

Nesite’s participation stems from a deep harmony with the world of art; the encounter with the ethical thinking of Dedalo Minosse was natural.

The material is a concrete gesture of reciprocity.

The raised floor modules, designed and created for the exhibition, are part of the narrative, the foundations that support continuous evolution, discreet but present, indispensable for welcoming and interpreting the work.

They too are equally artisanal and sensitive to the human rhythm of change.

Underneath each installation, like undergrowth, lies a philosophy that has guided Nesite’s work since its inception: every space, like every person, has the power to be reborn countless times, if supported with respect and foresight.

In the reciprocity of art and architecture, matter becomes a mediator of vision and concreteness, demonstrating that every form, when born of shared care, can transcend time.

The ultimate proof that beauty is the choice to remain.

Life

The narrative of Mater Materia reminds us (somewhat admonishingly) that the future is built on respect for what has generated us: every form of art, like every form of responsible enterprise, is an act of restitution.

Every creative gesture leaves a mark, and every mark needs matter to be imprinted and reverberate.

Stone, iron, glass and wood pulsate with the same creative energy that guides the hands and minds of those who design and those who make, giving life.

It is the most human essence of creation.
The mother material.

Reverberations | Umaneco by Nesite ©all rights reserved

Texts edited by Chiara Foffano – Illustrations by Ariele Pirona