What are you afraid of?

Alice Padovani is an extraordinary interpreter of our times, capable of grasping and transforming those signals that indicate profound changes and returning them to us with the simplicity of a comprehensible language, combining word with gesture and material, so that 'her' art becomes 'ours' through ritual.

After two years of pandemic and an international crisis, Alice Padovani asks herself and all of us: "What are you afraid of?" (in Italian: "Di cosa hai paura?"). A few characters in black on a white billboard that have the power to awaken consciences from their collective torpor. A question that strikes suddenly, almost mystically, and forces us to look inwards.??

But what is fear? It is an emotion we all share, it is universal and as the evolutionary theorist Charles Darwin wrote in 1872, 'fear has always been expressed in a manner identical to that of today'.

Fear exists because one is not living with life, one is living in the mind what might happen next. This creates a distorted reality that makes us fear the other and diversity, which triggers prejudice, stereotypes and forms of discrimination.

The truth is that fear is very simple: we are all afraid and this makes us equal.

From this dialogue with the public and the synergetic collaboration with musicians “Le Piccole Morti”, arises the site-specific installation 'Eclipse. Three movements in black', at the City Museums in Reggio Emilia, Italy. An immersive installation, where sound accompanies and amplifies the spectator's suggestions, divided into three movements that give shape to this emotion. Three rooms, three sound (art installation), and a luminous and cathartic progression from darkness to light.

Just as in an eclipse, fear acts by deforming and blurring our reality, so Alice Padovani forces the spectator to see and listen to fear in order to understand its transitory nature.

In the central room, two chairs invite listening and meditation, while the two adjacent rooms act as the opposite poles of an eclipse. One room is darkness, emptiness, the censure of fear; the opposite room is light, the sharing of fears, united by a red thread from which, like a cloud, words rain down restored to the lightness of the soul.

At the entrance, introducing the three rooms, is a work that distinguishes Padovani's artistic language, a museum glass cabinet in which a phrase stands out in the sand: “My lucky charm against fear is time”.

"The fear is simply because you are not living with life. You are living in your mind."

Sadhguru

"What are you afraid of?" is one of the projects selected by Eccom-Idee for Culture through the call "DRIS - Co-creating Intercultural Societies: a Focus on Racism and Discrimination". and involves the visual artist Alice Padovani, flanked by the videomaker Ali Beidoun and the musicians Le Piccole Morti.

The project is in collaboration with the City Council of Reggio Emilia / City Museums of Reggio Emilia (Musei Civici) | Mondinsieme Foundation | Abreer-Association of Burkinabè of Reggio Emilia | Intercultural Choir of Reggio Emilia APS | AGE-Association of Young Europeans | Association of Ukrainian Volunteers in Italy-ABY | Maliana Badegna Association | Gemma-Unimore Museum | House of Cultures of Modena | Valdarnese Academy of Poggio | TEFA Colombia ODV Association of Modena | Silvia Rossi

Alice Padovani standing near the billboad, ready to write her fears