Maria Rapicavoli says she isn't a journalist, but her works of art tell a story about global events tied to Sicily, encouraging viewers to form their own opinions. She's covered issues ranging from the militarization of airspace and immigration to the mafia and the Second World War. Each piece offers arresting and interactive visuals to provoke thought and further conversation.
One of Maria's many evocative pieces stands out to me for its subject matter: Crooked Incline. For this piece, Maria created porcelain geometric shapes resembling bombs dropped by the Allies during World War II. The work serves as a haunting reminder of the damage wrought on Palermo, particularly by the Americans, who escalated bombing frequency and intensity in 1943.
Maria, who was born in a town on Mount Etna, has lived in New York for 13 years. She's currently doing an artistic residency program in Palermo organized by Istituto Svizzero.
I recently had the opportunity to chat with Maria, who shared her art inspiration and what went into the making of Crooked Incline.
What influence does your Sicilian heritage have on your art?
I use Sicily as a starting point for all my projects. I've been doing a lot of projects related to structures of power, economic issues, and socio-political issues. I am constantly taking inspiration from Sicily. Starting from a personal and familiar point of view, I try to make works that have a wider perspective.
What inspired Crooked Incline?
I was invited to have a show in an old Palazzo in Palermo as part of a project called Cassata Drone during Manifesta 12, an itinerant international art exhibition that in 2018 took place in Sicily. I've already done projects about how the sky is controlled and the militarization of the sky above Sicily—even above New York. I've always been interested in the common idea that the sky is open and accessible to everybody, but it's not. There are borders similar to those that are geographical, but the difference is that the borders are often arbitrary in the sky. They're just lines drawn, not based on geographical borders but on what is below the sky.
I was born in an area near military bases. Some of them are American bases and have existed since 1943 when the Allied forces arrived in Italy, first in Sicily. So, the militarized sky has always been part of my background. As a child, I remember hearing the roar of military planes, but I couldn't see them because they were super fast. However, this doesn't exist anymore because drones are very silent.
While doing this project in Palermo, I was supposed to remake a site-specific installation called A Cielo Aperto, an artwork related to drone corridors. The idea was to recreate the airspace above Sicily.
Because I usually spend one day or night in the place where I work on my installation, I asked the curator if I could sleep in the exhibition space. When I woke up in the morning, I realized something was wrong. I asked the owner of the building, and they told me that the palazzo was tilted because of a bomb that the Americans dropped in 1943 during an air raid. The building was damaged, but it wasn't destroyed.
Based on that, I decided to change my project. Because my family has a background in construction, I was familiar with plumb lines, which were widely used to create perpendicular lines.
I decided to make visible this damage related to 1943. I recreated plumb lines, but I used porcelain instead of metal. I made a hundred plumb lines and installed them in the space. Of course, the plumb lines were falling straight, but because the room was tilted, there was a sense of disorientation, so I made the plumb lines a little bit bigger, and they looked a little bit more like missiles or bombs. They looked like they were ready to explode or were about to be dropped.
Why did you use handmade white porcelain elements?
So, porcelain is fragile, the opposite of metal and stainless steel. I was also playing with the contradiction that they would break and could not damage anything. They would be damaged if dropped, so it's the opposite of real bombs or missiles.
I've been using porcelain a lot in my practice. I usually use white porcelain and don't decorate it. I wanted to create this contrast because a bomb is usually never white.
How do you incorporate historical narratives into your works?
I research a lot, and then I get inspired by one element that strikes me as urgent. I work on that. And usually, it's always about making visible something that otherwise is not really visible.
What is the impact of power structures on your work?
It's all based on a critique and then an analysis of the strongly connected structures. Economic, military, and political structures are all part of the same system. I like to talk about them because I like to talk about the daily consequences of these structures and what affects our lives.
Tell us about your current project.
I am working on a piece related to a criminal trial against the Sicilian Mafia, the Maxi Trial (Maxiprocesso), that took place almost 40 years ago in Italy. I have already documented all the folders of the Maxiprocesso. What I'm doing here now is to research the courthouse designed and built specifically to host the trial. I don't know the outcome yet because I just started my research in Palermo as part of the residency Palermo Calling: Art & Science together with architect Fabrizio Furiassi, who is also researching the courthouse.
What do you hope viewers of your art take away?
I don't want to force anyone to share my view. Every time I make a work, I have an urge to bring up something that bothers me or is relevant to make visible. But that doesn't mean that the viewers have the same approach as I do.
When I make a work, I like that the viewer will have their own interpretation and view. I would like them to have a broader view. For example, I made a video (The Other: A Familiar Story) about the story of a woman from my family who was a victim of domestic violence and was forced to move to the United States. This is a specific story that belongs to my family, but I tried to make it more universal and ensure that the viewer could appropriate it. It could be any woman anywhere in the world. And that's the approach I have with every project I make.
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