Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Marie by Marie Christine

My Grandmother Marie’s Stories
My favorite grandmother, Marie, was bedridden due to rheumatism. I often would climb up the stairs to the third floor apartment, we lived on the second floor of our house, and on the ground floor there was a café run by my parents. The house was a typical Swiss wooden cottage. Every steps marked by a cricking sound. Every hours marked by the sound of the clock. Lying beside Grand Maman Marie I would keep her company and be regaled by her stories. The two that I clearly remember are:
A woman and a man, they loved each other’s, they had no children. The man spent more and more time at the café drinking with his friends. The woman asked him that every time he came home late due to his drinking habit, he would have to give her a tenth of what he had spend that night at the café. Several years later they found themselves in a dire financial crisis, the woman pulled out a box from inside her closet, opened it to reveal all the monies that her husband after each outing had given her throughout the years.
During the war her young women friends and herself could not find, let alone afford to buy, the stocking that were so fashionable at the time. So they simply drew a line on the back of their legs.

And she always talked about the beautiful English Ladies who came to hike/vacation in our village smelling of soaps and perfume.

I'll Draw a Line, a performance/installation project was inspired by the above stories.To see images go to I'll Draw a Line 

Knitting... I need you at Figment Art Festival



Thank you so much for the wonderful stories and your participation in my project Knitting...I need you
that took place as part of the Figment Art Event on Governors Island.
I offered visitors some basic knitting lessons… Together we knitted and exchanged stories. 

At various moments throughout the days I performed shorts monologues, stories by themselves yet part of a complete tale...within each of the monologues I inserted elements of stories told to me by previous participants while unraveling the knitted elements, winding them up the trees in a pattern such as  climbing vines of morning glory does, twirling around the branches, hanging down, in a web like structure.


Sunday morning on the Ferry to Governors Island

                                     

Photo by Alisa J Liu
Friends knitting together









Monday, May 14, 2012

Valentina by Simone

This week end I had the chance to see the work of Simone Marinetto in his studio at ISCP
Here is one of his project, the story of Valentina, his grandmother. 
                               What would we be without our past?
How would our thoughts develop without any link to the previous ones?


                                   WITHOUT MEMORY 
by Simone Martinetto 


This is the story of Valentina, of her memory problems and of the thousand paper sheets scattered in her house.
Valentina lost her memory. The reason is unclear even to doctors: they believe it to be linked to her frequent taking of tranquillizers and to a nervous breakdown treated with electroshock.
Valentina's daughter loves her and refuses the fact that her mother does not remember events and persons for more than two minutes; most of all, Valentina's daughter cannot accept there are days when Valentina does not recognize her and mistakes her for her own mother.
Valentina goes out alone only to take a walk or to go to the parish church. She has a note with her name and address on it stapled in the pocket of her jackets.






Valentina is my grandmother and, although she does not remember my name, I love to hug her. Sometimes I take my guitar and play and she walks after me whistling and singing, following her great musical instinct.

Simone Martinetto was born 1980, Turin, Italy his practice consists of photography and installations. His work is an investigation on the
importance of memory, freedom, coincidences and dreams. 
Martinetto has created a new form of narrative, using an original photographiclanguage to tell small stories with symbolic meanings.
Using photography as a tool to examine the minds of others.
He began to practice photography when his grandfather, shortly before his death, passed on to him the camera he bought on the occasion of his birth. Martinetto works as an artist, cinematic still photographer and teacher. www.simonemartinetto.com