2004 Malga Costa, Arte Sella, Val di Sella, Trento, (Italy)
Materials: 40 cubic meters di clear sand 11.500 cut flowers
(limonium crystal dark blue)
Perfumed essences: green tea/basil/peach
Sound: a CD-Rom recorded and conceived for the event
Dimensions: m 27 x 8 x h 0,50
For the 2004 edition of Arte Sella: “Incontri internazionali arte e natura”, Maria Dompè has realized an incursion about the planet’s water emergency.
Water is a precious resource, wasted without sense, as if it were inexhaustible. On the contrary, the scarcity of this resource and its unequal distribution could provoke a real and serious war for the “blue gold.”According to the estimate by the U.N., approximately three billion people will be without water by 2025, with the risk of disease, mass migrations and conflicts for the control of rivers and springs.
Maria Dompè launches her message from an old stall, with a lyrical and confident tone that, as always, identifies her. The pavement is covered with sand, making it look like a desert scene which was created by the indiscriminate consumption of water. This scene is accompanied by a sound which comes from a remote depth: it is the echo of the underwater springs on their way to extinction. However, a sign of hope can be drawn from the bluette flowers that grow from the dehydrated ground, recalling the leopard-like image of the scotch-broom, “flower of the desert”.
In contrast to the nihilist hypothesis of a future catastrophe, there are the seeds of optimism, planted by the certainty that man can rediscover his equilibrium with nature. The odours are scattered in the environment, a fresh and relaxing aroma, inviting the viewer to enjoy the work by using all of his senses, leaving him drunk with its intense perfume. This stimulus leads to the reawakening the perceptive acumen, often negated by an excess of rationality. Therefore, the genetic relationship with nature has to be tested, not so much by scientific criteria, but with the intuitive practice of empathy. Only in this way, will the flowers sprout anew from the arid and infertile ground.
Maria Egizia Fiaschetti