MOTHER-RYTHM
Video art, 2014
Concept
A video that mixes different languages: the creative documentary, video art, and performance art. Styles and modes of narration overlap and interpenetrate on a journey in which time flexes and bends until I meet with my mother in an ahistorical dimension but which full of meaning - because in this impossible meeting I reach the sense of my life profoundly marked by this comparison. Something you can tell just with the video art language.
"In her video, the author undertakes an offensive adaptation of the mother motif. In a surprising mixture of analog and digital material she still finds original solutions, playing a fascinating game with masks, pictures, and rituals. Inspired by Alejandro Jodorowsky’s “Psychomagic,” Francesca Fini gets close to the mother myth, freeing herself from it in the act of creation. She follows the tradition of 20th-century video and performance, while also creating a very personal but never entirely private universe.” (SEFF Jury)
The video was specifically conceived for my solo exhibition Mother-Rythm, which took place in June 2014 at the Mondrian Suite Contemporary Art Gallery in Rome, curated by Lori Adragna. The exhibition, all focused on the theme of my relationship with the mother figure, consisted of the video, many physical and digital art installations, and the performance art piece The Lunchbox, which I performed live with my mother.
The performance.
My mother and I, in a performance on the concept of nutrition. She feeds me and I cherish her, with a red woolen thread that unites and divides us. Then I create a mesh, using hands and arms like knitting needles. Soon the mesh becomes a mask and then an umbilical cord that connects us to the head. A “mental” cord that I cut at the end of the ritual.
Documentation
Shows
Mother-Rythm - Francesca Fini personal exhibition, Mondrian Suite Contemporary Art Gallery, Roma - 2014
ALIENS – le forme alienanti del contemporaneo, Ferrara - 2014
Anthropologie numérique / 3ème édition, Paris - 2015
SEFF ‘15 European Competition (award for the most innovative documentary film language), Poland - 2015
Videoformes Festival, Clermont-Ferrand - 2015
VideoNotte video art program, Trieste - 2016
RED personal exhibition, Rome - 2018
Credits
Concept, art direction, animation, editing - Francesca Fini
Performing - Francesca Fini, Nancy Fini
Media
Exhibition review by Francesca Orsi - open link
Website of the project