Arabella Pio
arabella pio – ‘terra incognita’
Monday 4th August 2014, 7pm – 9pm
Join us to discover the development of Arabella’s residency project: ‘Terra Incognita’, and to meet the artist.
“During my residency at Back Lane West I have been exploring the geographical and metaphorical meaning of borders and where those two realms meet and blend.
In the last two decades thousands of people died at sea around Italy and along European borders in the attempt to escape their native countries. Although still being considered promised lands of redemption, Italy and Europe have also become an illusionary dream of freedom which can only be chased and rarely grasped.
The project I have been working on during my residency stems from a reflection on such notions of illusion and never ending quest.”
Image: hoping vs. coping, Arabella Pio. nov 2013. (two found & restored hockey goals) Tampere (Finland)
Biography
Arabella Pio’s investigative process involves both aestheticizing and politicizing her personal experiences and relationship with her surroundings, raising questions that concern cultural identity and the social and political environment that she lives in.
Pio’s installations have comprised of found objects, sound, written passages and photographs – and more recently, making – which she uses to explore concepts such as home, place, a sense of belonging, failure and loss.
Blending fictional and historical elements, she attempts to create narratives that explore the faceted nature of these concepts, where the subjective, the personal, and the universal overlap.