Installation

fluo pigment on cardboard, absorbent wrapping, uv lamp

cm 91 x 305 (multiple elements)

2020

Armata / Artêş is a work that was created as a tribute both to the brave women who daily decide to fight for freedom, but a gesture of solidarity towards the Rojava (Kurdish people). This work should be explained as the result of flash information layered in my mental projections: Kurdish women arming themselves to fight; the thousand questions about the feminine universe and new feminisms; toxic masculinity; my Sicilian-ness and the cultural relationship with weapons; the "tampon tax" issue. The word Armata arises from the anagram of the name Tamara and is meant to be both adjective and noun, the latter of which, translates in the Kurdish language as the word artêş that pronounced in Italian produces the sound of the Latin word artes which means skills, arti (from art). The installation consists of a series of pentítici arranged in horizontal rows on top of each other until a large wall space is filled. The feeling will be that of being bewildered in front of the invasive yellow-green coloring that conceals the message to be decrypted. The most superficial layer of the work, covered by the yellow-green wrappings, conceals the drawing of an AK-47, painted with fluorescent pigment, visible only under uv light. In fact, the work is illuminated with a special wood lamp with a stroboscopic function that is reactive to sound; it is an interactive installation: participation in the applause by the "audience" is essential to the visual impact, which alternates the view of the casings with the silhouette of the Kalashnikovs, emulating the firing of assault rifles.