Highlights from the exhibition 2022 - ALICE SHEPPARD FIDLER
Imagining The Fluidity Of Permanence
(an exchange between a 21st Century artist and a 17th Century building)
Curated by L.Mikelle Standbridge
Casa Regis Center for Culture and Contemporary art, Italy
Installation "Sum of its parts"
Alice was invited in Spring of 2022 to do a month long artist residency, concluding in a solo exhibition, based on her on-going investigation of historic buildings with stratified identities. The research was oriented along two axes. One was that she would install/recreate selected works that had been preconceived but adapted to the site and the second one was that she would create site-specific installations that were generated by materials found locally or within the building.
Her time spent in the residency was super productive, as she connected to the place and its people, and her installations grew organically in response to Casa Regis.
Installation "Sum of its parts"
THE BUILDING
What is a building? A meaningless structure unless humans inhabit it. Without care, it is overgrown by vegetation, roof tiles are displaced, and water starts the decay process. It might not take even 10 years to permanently compromise a building that with a human presence has been kept healthy since the 1600s or possibly over 11 generations. What you find in Alice’s work is that measurements are calculated in terms of human lives and her pieces always acknowledge a presence.
The installation "Sum of its Parts" was so appropriate that we asked to keep it as part of our permanent exhibition. Alice intuited that by collecting every free chair, whether it be covered in dust in the attic or basement (besides the uncanny fact that they all fit perfectly inside the space she had chosen), she would somehow be giving a visual chronology of the past. It is as if every soul is given a spot, as we travel from scholastic chair, to garden chair, to kitchen chair, as well as sweep through the stylistic changes of the eras. It also brought stories from the locals to the forefront. One visitor, seeing all the chairs, vividly recalled how as a 7 or 8 year old child, she was lined up with her peers in that room with their chairs in rows, their feet dangling, all facing the same direction, while they did their Catechisms with the head nun.
Installation "Surfeit"
Installation "Momentum"
MATERIALS
In Alice's family there was a heightened awareness for recycling and great pride was taken in not letting anything go to waste. Her family legacy was making something out of everything.
Of course the identity of an artist can't always be summed up in a few biographical references, but we can say that Alice's practice is sensitive to not adding more heaps of "stuff" to the world. In this region, known for its textile production, a local neighbour and factory worker brought home a piece of cloth, 25 meters (27 yards) long and gave it as an offering to the artist. So thoughtful.
This cloth was interesting because it had reached the end of the line. It had served, like a work horse (for what they call "satini di decatissaggio") to protect, in a sandwich format, the fine wool cloth. After 50 to 100 times of being subjected to high-temperature washings and pressure, and once retired, its only usefulness would be a drop cloth for painters. Yet, Alice inserted one more life cycle before returning it to this final fate.
The artist worked on the cold, stone floor to meticulously fold the cloth, being scrunched up in an uncomfortable position for days and days. The resulting installation piece, "Momentum" speaks to me on many levels. The cloth was an "ugly" leftover and with the touch of her hands, she made it beautiful (fluffy and inviting/monastic and meditative). It is also hard for me to disassociate the artist's results from the origin of the cloth from the iconic textile factory, so I continue to see in the work an honorary gesture to the labourer, to the repetition of their day, to the physical contact with the materials, to the human behind the machine.
Installation detail, "Momentum"
Ninaì, Walter Guabello, and Alice Sheppard Fidler
COLLABORATION
Alice asked local musicians Ninaì and Walter Guabello to collaborate with her, as a way to get to know the building acoustically, curious about what would be generated by and through the space. What an experience! The two sound whisperers worked with Alice in the dark, improvising with any found object, and felt out every sound crevice. The walls had a huge amount of unexpected emotion and I had never felt so directly linked to past voices. A big thanks to these musicians who spent the day with us and certainly helped Alice hear the unspoken past.
Installation “Untitled, Sandbags”
DETAILS
While living the building, Alice was particularly struck by its noises, its moving parts, it rusty openings and closings of every shutter, window, blind, and lock and key. The daily ritual of opening and closing the structure became such a part of her routine that it became thepractice, the process, the path into the workings of the building and its history.
Now, I leave with you her own writing,
Ad infinitum
dark stirring
dust lifting
doors sweeping
scenes revealing
hinges rotating
keys turning
latches lifting
labels jangling
light meandering
glass squeaking
views stretching
reflections reaching
floors aching
spiders complaining
buildings voicing
space expanding
history performing
in outing
out inning
wind toying
air squeezing
fixtures flapping
walls talking
doors slamming
apertures filling
motion continuing
glass rattling
shutters opening
openings shutting
objects babbling
bangings clattering
light darkening
dark lightening
cups chattering
forces controlling
wedges efforting
bricks blocking
exchanges busying
movements recycling
interactions perpetualling
dark creeping
thoughts wondering
silence steeling
doors closing
hearts missing
time continuing
place enduring
space repeating
Alice Sheppard Fidler - writing to accompany Building Notes - After residency at Casa Regis, Italy, 2022