Born in Padua (1963) she first attracted critical attention thanks to her partecipation at the Venice Biennale (1993). Her quotidian microcosm came to be a means of conveying the sentiments of a generation that grew up with the images broadcast on television. She was one of the winners of the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennial in 1999. Reflecting on the use of images on the dynamics of spectacle, she has worked on televisual events, stadiums, arenas and historic theatres, where the audience become an opportunity for reflection on the relationship between use and user. She has been working on videos that recreate nocturnal visions of cities and continents, a tribute to the tradition of celestial and terrestrial mapping. And to the orbits of our eyes, optical instruments that carry images to our head-world.
What are the biggest challenges you have met in your career?
The greatest challenge is the daily one, which requires you to always overcome the work done up until the day before. Continuous attempts, made up of thoughts, reflections, tests, failures, expectations. Which sometimes go on for days, months, years, and which suddenly lead to something, which (perhaps) can finally be shown to others.
How was your passion for art born?
Visiting as a child the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia in Ravenna, where I glimpsed the blue mosaics shining like starry nights in the darkness of space. When I see the bright pixels of my projections, like mosaic tiles, I think that perhaps all my life I have only been trying to rediscover that original amazement, through which I discovered art for the first time.
What is your main source of inspiration?
The “earth theatre”. In particular the relationship between spectators, light and energy, and between sky and earth. This is evident in the techniques I use: drawing, photography and video. I am fascinated by the path of energy that creates and transports images: from electromagnetic waves to satellite technology, which transmit images of the Universe but also of our Earth from above, and of cities, built in antiquity by observing the position of the stars, drawing terrestrial and celestial planispheres to try to orient ourselves.
What does art mean to you?
Art for me is concentration and continuous observation, which fuels different and necessary perspectives for the resistance, survival and hope of human beings in the world.
Grazia Toderi, ph. Toni Wilkinson