One gesture to recall another

In 2016 I was asked to come up with a specific work for the ‘Gardens in Transit’ project in the public gardens on Viale Montello in Milan. I envisaged making a dedication to Lea Garofalo, to whom that space is dedicated along with her daughter.
The work was never made because the entire art side of the project never came into being.

PROPOSAL FOR THE ‘GARDENS IN TRANSIT’ IN VIALE MONTELLO IN MILAN
PREMISE:
How to keep a trace of the time of one’s life?
The colour is created and transformed inside the studio, in the small and concave space of the bowl, before taking up space by being spread onto various surfaces. Since 2006 all the colours have been recorded in the Diaries. Each Diary is a painted stick, ten-centimetres high, one-metre long. The first colour covers the entire surface, the second leaves a part of the first visible and this is repeated until the entire surface is filled. The work ends when there is no available space left. Each Diary documents about two to five months of my time.
 
AIM:
How to exteriorise one’s own intimacy? How to bring out on a public level this small, concentrated and intimate gesture?
Let’s imagine that this time, this private, interior place that is constituted within the space of one’s own life can be brought outside and opened up, offered to others. Above all, it is offered to Lea Garofalo and her daughter Denise, to whom the work is dedicated. From me to them, from one woman to other women, from one human being to other human beings. One sign to another sign.
 
PROJECT:
A Diary embedded in the wall accompanied by a dedication.
The object measures 10 x 100 x 2.5cm and is kept in an aperture about 3cm deep. The aperture has been carved directly out of the wall and is protected by a sheet of glass approximately 0.5cm thick.
The glass has an engraving in my own handwriting. The words flow directly in front of the colours.
I envisage the installation in the garden, in one of the walls between two pilasters. Almost as if a snug space had been created in a niche to house an object that is not too big but is concentrated and full of colours.
 
DEDICATION:
To Lea and Denise traces of my daily gestures       
Maria

Specific Projects
Works conceived for a specific site or a specific context.

Diary
Opere che prendono la forma diaristica