Maniace Castle’s exhibition space hosted Davide Dall’Osso’s “In a Perfect World” exhibition. The artist created an installation of more than 90 sculptures through which he wanted to create a world where gender equality is achieved.
Upon entering Ipostila Hall, the sound of women’s voices can be heard resonating. They are the voices of the sculptural wave, a light but unstoppable feminine wave. It is Arethusa herself who welcomes Desdemona, Griselda and other female figures from literature who have lived through gender violence. Through their brutal experience they offer us the possibility of change that can lead to equality. We say in a “perfect” world while knowing that perfection does not belong to the human realm.
It is a slow but determined and unstoppable wave, where every drop of blue is the voice of women born from the words of novels, plays and opera librettos, from the words of poets and women who have suffered the violence of femicide.
The choice of the artist to give a voice to the female characters from literature stems from the need to be able to show a posthumous vision of violence itself, where the women who endured it can tell their stories and tell us about a possibility of change. They tell us what can be done to stop the evil that left a mark on their own personal histories. Their liberating, powerful voices shatter the muffled walls of our existence.
Alongside large faces of women with their intangible transparency observing the wave’s dance, narratives take shape as the characters tell about themselves and listen to each other’s accounts of the violence they have endured. Their voices inspire reflection in us and help us to feel the urgency of achieving gender equality.
