MERISTÀ
Fatima Bianchi and Ilaria Turba
Curated by Giulia Zorzi
Casa Testori
17 October 2020 – 26 February 2021
REALITY AS A STARTING POINT
Giulia Zorzi
In the realization of this exhibition, I firstly considered myself in a place: a house, no longer inhabited, its rooms now empty on the floor occupied by this exhibition. I balance along a thin line, where public space and private history intertwine, attempting to initiate a dialogue with the environment as it is now, as well as with the history of this particular place, and with the people who once lived in it. Additionally, I took into account the permanent interventions by artists who have left stratifying traces, modifying the original physiognomy of the house itself.
“Simply love reality, always, in any possible way, even in the hasty and rough way that was mine. But love it. There is no other rule.”, wrote the celebrated author, critic and playwright Giovanni Testori, who lived almost his entire life in this house.
In Meristà, artists Fatima Bianchi and Ilaria Turba re–interpret the stories and imagery of their own families and personal lives, through a process of transformation and subtle magic that engages directly with the audience, making the private universal.
Within the spaces of Casa Testori itself, this dialogue starts at opposite sides of the house and has the structure of a song: the stairway is the intro, the larger rooms at the far ends of the house serve as the main verses, and the rooms along the corridor act as variations on the theme.
[…]
[The title] Meristà is simply a word we collectively invented – one that reminded us of a living tissue that grows and develops. From one story, many stories are born. Meristà is the title of our song.
Meristà is part of Pocket Pair, a cycle of exhibitions coordinated by Marta Cereda and launched by Casa Testori in 2018. The title of the cycle takes up an expression from poker that indicates the situation in which a player has two cards, of equal value, and must bet on them. In the same way, the curators are betting on emerging talents, two artists of equal value, to give life to a high quality two-person exhibition, set up on the ground floor of Casa Testori where they are free to meet, even within the individual rooms, to visit each other, to dialogue closely.
