nodo
ongoing research project
finalist at RoPlasticPrize 23 @Galleria Rossana Orlandi MDW 2023
ongoing research project
finalist at RoPlasticPrize 23 @Galleria Rossana Orlandi MDW 2023
Ropes are okay, laces, strings, in short, threads reminiscent of those that in our own bodies connect moods and functions: veins, arteries, neurons, muscle bundles, connective tissue laces, star-shaped cells or that end in branches and knots. This is how this umpteenth Tower of Babel has grown, speaking the many languages of different colors and materials, structured according to the logic of the knot: where there is a need for resistance and stability, there appears what sailors have always needed to hold heavy ships, that is, a form of fluid engineering that can withstand even the heaviest weights. The knot has its own form of intrinsic intelligence that humanity has always known how to use, whether it is to stuff a chair, weave a basket or precisely fasten a large ship to a bollard. The knot is a complex yet light form of relationship and has always been an important structural metaphor for existence: the world is the result of a constant process of aggregation and joining of elements.
The beneficial tension of two cables holding each other replaces the verbal contribution, which, let us not forget, often lies. The relationship between materials that are soft but sensitive, tenacious but capable of bending, capable of holding a web of forms in order that, while living from its cavity without losing sight of it, cannot tell lies because it would fall into a tangled collapse. The work sits at the intersection of design, set design and sculpture and does not seek precise disciplinary definitions. It was born with stubbornness from the coming together of hundreds of meters of ropes, circles commissioned from a blacksmith, many hours of physical work by four hands, intimate conversations arisen as if around a fireplace, from an obsessive weaving to the point of trance.
The soul of this organism though, finds its own logical structure far from rationalism. This creature of knots thus reveals itself as indefinite in its genre, deliberately unfinished, hybrid but assertive in its ability to occupy space.
NODO is an artistic research project that began in February 2022. It is a large textile sculpture (4.5 m x 1.5 m) created in a dialogue between two women - Giuditta Vettese and Marilù Lembo - over six months of 'material embroidery'. The work was constructed by recycling hundreds of metres of unsold rope from the warehouse of two Italian rope factories.
Project by Giuditta Vettese and Marilù Lembo
Performance by Giuditta Vettese and Marilù Lembo
Photo Marta Marinotti
Styling Oana Cilibiu
MUA Serena Congiu
Hair styling Erisson Musella
Movement director Maria Combi
Ass MUA Martina Porcelli
Ass styling Matilde Proietti
In collaboration with Marsèll and Oh Carla
Shooting coordinator Carolina Merlo
Sponsor Bancinastri and Serenacecchinidesign
Hosting institution ViaFarini.org
Thx to Centro Alik Cavaliere
Music Jacopo Gino
Video Gabriele Savino