Eredità/Predizione
2021
Site-specific installation
Soil and weeds
Todi Biennal
Sala delle Pietre, Todi
“思祖惟文太,宗兴伍佰年,念征有杰士,述信继商贤。”
-Generation Name of Peng family
The sentence in Chinese is an excerpt from a poem by my first ancestor, Peng Deyuan (彭德远, 1375-1430 d.C). More specifically, Generation Name of Peng Family (彭氏家族字辈). It is an old Chinese tradition that serves to systematize the names of each generation, and make all their descendants as clear as possible. According to Chinese tradition, each family must use the name prefixed by the ancestor, that is, follow the order of the ideograms of the poem. Unfortunately, today this ancient tradition has been neglected after modernization.
This site-specific installation is part of a series of works to commemorate my grandfather, who passed away in March 2021 (not being able to go to his funeral because of the covid, I feel
strongly guilty). A few years ago my grandfather passed down the Peng family book to mine father, and when my father returned to Italy he passed it to me. While researching my family's book I highlighted all the names of each generation, in the end I discovered this poem, it is a phrase that has a strong symbolic value for me. But not being an expert in ancient Chinese, so I have not yet been able to translate it correctly
I've never had a way to cultivate from the land, my grandfather did it, my father too. I would not like to call this installation as a simple “installation”, but for me it is an Action, that of cultivating, which becomes a ritual, it is a ritual of the human instinct. It is a very
simple and collective gesture. The result is not more important. What is important is the process and the effort while creating it and how it will end in an environment that does not belong to it.