Folla, Oikeiôsis

Mara Palena, Folla, Oikeiôsis, A Study Of Introspection, digital poster with white wooden frame and zeroglass, 140x100 cm, 2020, Ed. of 1, Courtesy of Twenty14

This project aims to examine the theme of introspection through photography. The re-elaboration of memory is only one of the reasons that push Mara Palena to start a long process - potentially infinite - which takes the title of "Oikeiôsis": an ancient Greek word, used to indicate self-realization through the knowledge of the self. inner. The analogical images, produced from the artist's childhood until today, undergo a continuous alteration that seems to be regulated by a state of consciousness that is sometimes fragile and melancholy, sometimes romantic, sometimes sharp - almost violent - never graspable. Alterations similar to frequencies, which regulate the tone of our perception of reality and its aesthetic transposition; frequencies that vibrate in the presence of memory, which permeates every body; a body made of bodies which in turn permeate every space. Passing through the crowd of a rave, in which human profiles can hardly be recognized, the viewer finds himself as if inside a large heart system, which pulsates through the images and sounds of a diary. Oikeiôsis (Ancient Greek: οἰκείωσις, Latin: conciliatio) is a term introduced by the Stoic philosophers (ca. 300 BC) to indicate the realization, the ultimate goal of living beings. According to the Stoics it is the knowledge of one's self, through the synaesthesis, or internal perception. Thanks to this self-knowledge, according to the Stoics, living beings can fly, swim, move without anyone ever teaching them. It therefore contains strength, health, beauty, body functions, as well as love for one's own species and community. After having reworked, manipulated and altered her photographic archive for more than ten years, the artist approached sound therapy, thus creating a dialogue between image and sound frequency. Everything in the world has its own frequency, and that frequency is directly related to its molecular weight. Some works are designed to be accompanied by frequencies related to the emotion that the image suggests: the image of the crowd can be accompanied by four frequencies present in our body: Endorphin, Noradrenaline, Serotonin, Adrenaline. These substances, stimulated by their respective frequencies, are the same ones that could be produced within an adrenaline context. The project includes video works in which the photographic and sound work are the result of continuous re-elaboration. Images, audio recordings, conversations, musical passages recorded over the years by the artist and reworked, sounds ruined by time and fading musical memories. Matilde Scaramellini