In this work, I once again use the label as the material of the image. A label is a symbol of a product’s identity, but also of the economic and cultural value we assign to it. Among them, the phrase Made in Italy has become a global brand in its own right, evoking quality, tradition, and desirability.
The work is inspired by the fire that occurred on 1 December 2013 in a textile workshop in Prato, where seven Chinese workers lost their lives. That event stands as one of the clearest contradictions of today’s manufacturing system: a production district in which many Italian companies outsource part of their manufacturing to workshops run by Chinese entrepreneurs, in collaboration with italian owners of factories, employing workers from China—often under precarious working conditions—in order to sustain the economic value associated with the Made in Italy label.
The structure of the house is built from upside-down Made in Italy labels. The words remain legible, yet they appear as if written in an altered, almost foreign language. They represent the moment when a brand continues to exist, but its meaning is reversed: identity becomes little more than commercial value.
Inside the house, the Made in China labels represent the invisible workforce that sustains this production system. The smoke dissolving into the surrounding space symbolically evokes lives consumed and rendered invisible, but also a memory at risk of disappearing along with the people whose labour made that value possible.
The work is not an accusation directed at a particular country, but at a system that separates the brand from the reality of labour. I am interested in questioning what happens when the value of a label outlives the people, the places, and the gestures that brought it into being.
