2024 Two-week Residency – Passaggi Atina, Italy

In 2024, I travelled to a hilltop town, Atina inland from Rome, with nothing but basic tools and an eyelet maker. Alongside a handful of British artists, we stayed in an old Asilo or refuge used now to accommodate artists for different events. Our mandate was to make work to sit alongside the town’s summer festivals. Over the course of two weeks, we saw a Madonna, cannellini bean, opera and cabernet wine festival.

I started by producing drawings of the town itself before discovering in the damp, rather ominous basement of the old building, rolls of banners from previous festivals. The resulting wall works were a patchwork of local architectural features, collaged from the remodelled banners, with eyelets attached, facilitating the works being hoisted to the wall of the Asilo. The sculpture, again spoke to the town’s architecture but also to the mobility of the draped Madonna who had been paraded around the hilltop town. The performative aspect of this work was never realised.

Over the residency, the only time we didn’t hear the main square’s church clock chime the quarter hour, day and night, was for the Opera. A free event which started two hours late and subsequently went on until 2 am. Viva L’Italia!

Residency & exhibition curated by Theresa Caruana