Mixed media, variable materials (oil and acrylic on canvas, silver point on board, audio loop 27
minutes, found objects). The audio production and voice by Oscar De Summa.
minutes, found objects). The audio production and voice by Oscar De Summa.
This version of the installation was developed for Phada Murgania 2011 at the former Church of Sant'Antonio in Badoere di Morgano.
The project blends local folklore about the legend of Morgana - as it appears in the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili - with the historical story of Lucia Roveri della Mirandola, a woman tried by the Inquisition in Modena, Italy, in the late 18th century. Lucia was at the center of a cult that worshipped her as God the Father, and of a new mystery: according to documents preserved in the Inquisition archives, the cult believed that God had descended to earth in the form of a female “Figure” - not incarnate, but using a kind of illusory female shell - for a new redemption, this time of the flesh, meant to complete the unsuccessful and incomplete redemption that had been initiated by the Son, Jesus.
The artwork imagines that one man today is still a believer or fanatic of this forgotten cult:
he has occupied the old church, where he lives, camped in a kind of hermitage adapted as a place of worship for Lucia/God. The hermit character is left to the viewer's imagination, with the strongest trace of his (momentarily absent) presence being an audio recording in which the character’s voice recites excerpts from the sect's original writings along with his own reflections. The recording plays from an old reel-to-reel tape recorder, an homage to Pupi Avati’s The House with the Laughing Windows (echoing the recorded monologue of Buono Legnani in the film), and suggesting that the paintings are the work of the hermit himself.
The project blends local folklore about the legend of Morgana - as it appears in the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili - with the historical story of Lucia Roveri della Mirandola, a woman tried by the Inquisition in Modena, Italy, in the late 18th century. Lucia was at the center of a cult that worshipped her as God the Father, and of a new mystery: according to documents preserved in the Inquisition archives, the cult believed that God had descended to earth in the form of a female “Figure” - not incarnate, but using a kind of illusory female shell - for a new redemption, this time of the flesh, meant to complete the unsuccessful and incomplete redemption that had been initiated by the Son, Jesus.
The artwork imagines that one man today is still a believer or fanatic of this forgotten cult:
he has occupied the old church, where he lives, camped in a kind of hermitage adapted as a place of worship for Lucia/God. The hermit character is left to the viewer's imagination, with the strongest trace of his (momentarily absent) presence being an audio recording in which the character’s voice recites excerpts from the sect's original writings along with his own reflections. The recording plays from an old reel-to-reel tape recorder, an homage to Pupi Avati’s The House with the Laughing Windows (echoing the recorded monologue of Buono Legnani in the film), and suggesting that the paintings are the work of the hermit himself.
