NATALE ORSINI
At Panther Step
26 August - 1 September 2021
26 August - 1 September 2021
“Circe,
how canst thou bid me be gentle to thee, who hast turned my comrades into swine
in thy halls, and now keepest me here, and with guileful purpose biddest me go
to thy chamber, and go up into thy bed, that when thou hast me stripped thou
mayest render me a weakling and unmanned?
Nay, verily, it is not I that shall be fain to go up into thy bed, unless thou,
goddess, wilt consent to swear a mighty oath that thou wilt not plot against me
any fresh mischief to my hurt.” So I spoke, and she straightway swore the oath
to do me no harm, as I bade her. But
when she had sworn, and made an end of the oath, then I went up to the
beautiful bed of Circe.
Odyssey, Book
10.
Like Ulysses,
now we are called to travel on a journey in the Agro Pontino region (Lazio,
Italy) through scenarios that create connections between present and past.
The figure of
Circe is an ambivalent portrait: a hostile sorceress who transforms her men
into animals but also a welcoming goddess only for those who are able to
understand her true identity. She is the
perfect symbol of the bi-frontism of hospitality, she can be malignant or
benign depending on the representation we decide to attribute to her. Like her, the
impervious nature shows us the way to places that do not allow us to be
traveled, incomprehensible spaces that are foreign to our eyes.
The images are
far away from a real condition, becoming without space and time, creating a new
imaginary detached from any geographical boundary. They are Archetypal Images,
visual representations present in the same way into the unconscious of all men. Through visual
analysis, the environment allows to be analyzed in its most intimate details,
in all its physical nuances and in the people who populate it. The terrestrial
mixes with the supernatural and we become unable to distinguish known
atmospheres from those that are unknown to us. Visually, we
take a slow walk that allows us to see reality as the representations of an
abstract environment, but with objects and subjects that inhabit it and make it
concrete and alive.
Text by Michela Coslovich


































