What language should be used to describe a place? This question is the starting point and the core question of Claudia Losi's project and namesake book, a collection of transversal contributions, from art to geography, from semiotics to psychology, which interrogates the way we perceive places and the role of our imagination in such a process.
The archipelago of St Kilda is the most remote part of the British Isles, in the Outer Hebrides, Scotland. In 1930 the last inhabitants left the island for good: all that remains are stonewalls, houses, trails marked by their toil; what was once there is dispersed, what was once hoped for never to come about. The artist Claudia Losi managed to reach St Kilda only in 2012, after having tried a few years earlier in vain. To what degree may a place be described by its geology, geography and history, and how much of it is imagined? What does it mean to think of a place before being there physically? How many descriptions inhabit our consciousness? How do I imagine being there? sets out to answer these question by means of a choral reflection: a writer, a semiologist and a cinema historian, a geographer, a biologist and a naturalist, a neuroscientist, a psychiatrist and an artist lent all Losi their voices to describe the idea of an “archipelago world,” starting out from St Kilda. The book also features a series of new plates by the artist.
Published on the occasion of the eponymous exhibition, Collezione Maramotti, Reggio Emilia, from May 8 to October 16, 2016.
Claudia Losi (born 1971 in Piacenza, Northern Italy, where she lives and works) studied Fine Arts, then graduated in Languages from the Bologna University. Among numerous exhibitions in Italy and abroad, recently she was exhibited at Livorno In Contemporanea; Tenuta dello Scompiglio, Vorno-Lucca, Italy (2015); La Maréchalerie, Versailles; Studio Orta Les Moulins, Boissy-le-Châtel; MAMbo, Bologna (2013); MAXXI, Roma (2010 and 2012); Via Farini-DOCVA, Milano (2011); Le Magasin, Grenoble; Royal Academy, London (2010); Stenersen Museum, Oslo; Museo Marino Marini, Florence; Ikon Gallery, Birmingham (2008).
Nature and science are her main source, together with history and anthropology. Her artistic research focuses on knowledge-based experiences such as the relationship between human and nature, travel and exploration. Since 1998 she has been participating to many participatory projects. Losi explores the concept of narration through art and writing, using her work to connect and foster new communities among human relations.
Texts by Marco Ciriello, Christopher Collins, Hamish Fulton, Michele Guerra, Claudia Losi, Carlo Maiolini, Matteo Meschiari, Paolo Ossola, Isabella Pezzini, Fabio Pupin, Giorgio Vallortigara.
