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Rosas - The Attic #2, 2012
Video HD , length: 30´, courtesy of the artist
Presented by GAMeC, BergamoROSAS - The Attic #2 is the second chapter of the trilogy by Marinella Senatore, following the first one in Berlin and its conclusion in Madrid. The central chapter, filmed in Derby in the heart of England, marks the climax of what Rosas actually represents: not a video but a more important process of shared collective creation attempted by a contemporary artist.
Using newspapers, radio stations and announcements in stadiums to involve the numerous local communities, amateur filmmakers, photographers, theatre groups, activists, artists, actors, musicians and dancers, in this second chapter Marinella has managed to bring together over 16,000 people who have not only created, staged, directed and acted, but effectively are ROSAS. Therefore, we need to start with the end of the video, with the closing credits that sum up what is not merely a simple organizational effort, but the very core of Marinella’s artistic work, which calls the artist’s role into question and updates it: not merely as the centralizing figure of an idea, but the activator of a participatory process, the coordinator of numerous groups and the promoter of workshops. An artist who does not impose but accepts and channels the needs and desires of the social fabric in which it acts, facilitating exchange and knowledge among people, the intersection of public and private memory, and the interaction of different generations.
For these reasons, ROSAS is not merely a video, but a dynamic community experience – it is named after a Belgian travelling dance company – in which many of the people involved travelled to Spain, Germany and England to complete the work. At the end of the project the artist decided to leave the set and technical equipment she used at the complete disposal of the local organizations.
ROSAS - The Attic #2 is a great work of social art in which what exists surpasses what can be seen, and where what can be seen illuminates what exists. Because of this fundamental aspect it becomes the limelight, inevitably Caravaggesque in its beam of pure humanity. The story seemingly develops without a specific logic: only at the end does the spectator have all the elements needed to assemble the narrative puzzle. Just as in the other the other two episodes, with an epidemic and earthquake, it is a traumatic event – here a car accident involving a little girl – that suddenly orients the story.
- Bio
Marinella Senatore is a filmmaker and artist. She works with video, photography, drawing, installation and sound. In her projects, often developed in collaboration with institutions as museums and universities, she involves entire communities in the creative process (i.e. a community of retired miners from Enna, Sicily; more than 20000 citizens from Derby, UK, Berlin and Madrid; 300 Lower East Side residents in NYC, 500 workers of Venice, 1800 citizens of Madrid, among others). The public is involved as co-writer, actor, set designer, camera operator, director, dramatist, coach, choreograph, teacher …sharing time, experiences and skills, acquiring new knowledge in an atmosphere of ongoing workshop, in contact with the contents they find in their environment and according to the level of involvement and their backgrounds. Connecting personal events with collective processes, fact and fiction, her projects encompassed a whole variety of relations, something that involves negotiations, between the instigator (the artist), the participants, the geopolitical context, etc. negotiated in the public sphere, fostering the construction of an archive of shared narratives that creates a sense of community.