Home/Lessico per la vita di coppia theer

Report on the HOME project / LEXICON ON COUPLE LIFE
Ilaria Sileo

Homes are, always,
spatial formulas for living love,
in all its manifestations1.
E.Coccia

HOME / LESSICO SULLA VITA DI COOPPIA is a project that attempted to question the relational dynamics of couple life during the lockdown because, two years after the outbreak of the pandemic, we still feel the need to reflect on the changes that the

closure caused by the health emergency has brought us.

Couples, in particular, have had to put their relationship to the test because they were ‘forced to cohabit’ in that place where our bliss and the rest of the world overlap, the home2.

For some relationships, the lockdown has had negative effects, leading to separation.The National Association of Italian Divorce Lawyers recorded, in 2020, a 60% increase in marital separations compared to the previous year.

On the contrary, there are those who have had the opportunity to appreciate the new condition thanks to the discovery of new emotions and passions towards the other, also understanding the existence of a feeling capable of going beyond every difficulty.

This project, born from the collaboration between the nonprofit organization WindMill ARTPOWER PLANT and the cultural association for contemporary arts SINCRESIS in Empoli,envisaged the creation of a participatory work with the American artist Susan Harbage Page -an artist who encourages co-creation through involvement and participation in her work -through a call, open to all, to send material representing the life of the couple during those months.

The photographs received were the protagonists of a moment of collective reflection for the

people present on September 15th in the Sincresis spaces. Thanks to the mediating presence of apsychologist, each of us had the opportunity to reflect on those moments, projecting our experiences onto photographs that did not belong to us.

Subsequently, with the discovery of the personal stories represented by those shots, we noticed how this experience was lived emotionally differently by each of us and how each couple manifested their tensions and passions differently. Each partner was able to understand what their own space was, how to divide daily tasks, meet again after periods of physical and emotional distance or understand the need for an individual space in which to dedicate themselves to self-care.

The involvement and participation in this moment led Susan Page to ask us to

show her some body poses that we assumed during that period of closure, mirroring those moments with our bodies. Some decided to be photographed as if they were on the computer, some as if they were on the sofa, some as if they were walking around the house, and some as if they were again going grocery shopping with a mask or while taking salsa lessons via webcam.

The photographs taken, printed in 50×70 format, were combined with the testimonies receivedpreviously from each couple, thus creating the participatory work entitled Corporal Cartography in the time of Covid, which was positioned on the front wall at the entrance, as an initial presentation of the other works exhibited.

The following day, with the evening inauguration, each artist present had the opportunity to tell their experience as a couple and explain the choice to restitute that very intimate and personal period. Among those works, Susan’s installation proved to be a representative map of the new ‘everyday life’ experienced at home during the health emergency. Looking at those photos, anyone could see themselves reflected and see the humanity hidden behind the works of art exhibited that day at the Sincresis gallery.

This project, born from the need to reflect on what has been experienced, has demonstrated itsvitality thanks to the possibility of being a continuous work in progress with future personal integrations of other couples and proving to be always valid in view of different and multiple outcomes.

Thanks to the collaborations and productive complements that took place during those two days, HOME /LESSICO SULLA VITA DI COPPIA has proven to be, as Umberto Eco states, a truly open work: «as a proposal of a ‘field’ of interpretative possibilities, as a configuration of stimuli endowed

with a substantial indeterminacy, where the user is induced to a series of ever-changing readings

[…] as a ‘constellation’ of elements that lend themselves to different reciprocal relationships»3.

Bibliografia Sitografia

COCCIA 2021

E.Coccia, Filosofia della casa. Lo spazio

domestico e la felicità, Einaudi editore,

Torino 2021

Eco 2016

U.Eco, Opera aperta. Forma e

indeterminazione nelle poetiche

contemporanee, Bompiani, Milano 2016