METAPHORS FOR SURVIVAL II
21.10. – 30.11.2017
Muratcentoventidue Artecontemporanea Bari
www.muratcentoventidue.com

Galleria Muratcentoventidue Artecontemporanea is pleased to present Metaphors for Survival, a solo exhibition featuring works by Sissa Micheli.
The research by Sissa Micheli, South Tyrolean artist and Viennese of adoption, oscillates between the still and the moving image, resulting in installations, videos and photographies. Coming from the world of photography, the artist likes to create environments and objects for her photos and videos, exalting their intrinsic kinetic energy through formal, luminous and sound expansions. In this way Micheli leads the viewer to reflect on those aesthetic aspects that the world of photography and cinema have in common focusing on the contemporary reflection on the genres of cultural communication.
After a careful observation of the surrounding reality, the artist loves to question what seems to be known through visual-emotional circuits. Her pictures appear attractive and ambiguous expressing both the will to bring out collective fears and fantasies, and to stop the time. Her photographic works seem to be in balance between motion and still-image, between present and past, reflecting on the temporal dimension and in particular on the transient moment. The works on display, which swing between reality and fiction, between present and future, aim to face collective emotions such as fear and the need for protection or even the hope for survival strategies. Topographic and geological situations like volcanoes and mountains are used as metaphors of survival or failure. The recurring use of the aluminum foil, conceived by NASA in 1964, used as rescue coverages, accentuates the state of emergency by stimulating a reflection on our time, particularly on the state of our natural environment and on the urgency of protecting it.
The video installation entitled "A Mountain Phenomenon" is related to the light energy variations. Images of some silvery mountains appear to be moving in space thanks to their projection on spotlights used in photographic and cinematic fields. During their rotation, the mountains, made of the reflective material of the aluminum blankets, reverberate and interrupt the light, exalting its energy potential. Artificially animated structures seem to challenge the physical laws of the transformation of solar energy. The reflecting surface of the mountains allows sculpture to appear as a glacier and exalts various associations such as that with frozen water as a form of unused energy. In this work, also the use of aluminum blankets used as emergency covers suggests a reflection on the global problem of exhaustion of natural energies.