Stories change the shape in which they appear. Sometimes they are a book, sometimes a song, a dance step, sometimes a film and sometimes a photograph. Something finds its way. Always.
With a cinematic gaze trained to read a hand’s width above reality and a hand’s width below fantasy, director Alessia Scarso enters into a monologue with the night and the stars, guiding the viewer through an exhibition in which time stands still in painterly landscape photographs and the flow of events is reshaped in timelapses.
“AD SIDERA. Once Upon a Time in the Sky”, with music by composer Marco Cascone, invites the audience to immerse themselves in the harmony between celestial elements and the earthly landscape, offering a nostalgic ode to a starry sky that is becoming increasingly invisible due to human activity.
Photographs, video projections and multisensory rooms compose a contemplative journey into time, into the night, and beyond the visible, placed within a kind of Wonderland in which beauty and scientific data converse in unison.
Among the works, the director plays with the invisible and the imperceptible, lifting the roof of a church to reveal the true Celestial Vault in a multimedia installation that gives the entire exhibition its title. Guest artists include painter Ilde Barone and the award-winning astrophotographers Pictores Caeli, of which the director is a member.
In a historical moment in which Humanity and Nature vie for supremacy on Earth, Alessia Scarso sings of a return to contemplation as a wish for peace, asking the Sky—the seat of humanity’s greatest questions—for the comfort of entering a state of wonder and enchantment.
Ex Convento del Carmine, Piazza Matteotti, Modica (RG)
from 22 august 2021 to 9 january 2022
venerdi, sabato, domenica dalle 16.30 alle 21.30
(chiuso 24 e 31 dicembre)
ingresso € 2 – obbligatorio Green Pass
To my father, up there with me
It matters little if stories change the shape in which they appear. Sometimes they are a book, sometimes a song, a dance step; sometimes a film, and sometimes a photograph. Something finds its way. Always.
Everything began with the discomfort of looking at the world at eye level. What I perceived did not nourish me, and I felt the need to lift my gaze in search of something purer. I could end it here, because a visitor needs nothing more: the relationship between viewer and artwork is an intimate moment.
Looking upward is nothing new to me. I had already tasted it as a curious teenager during nights spent watching the stars, around campfires, and during long hours of fishing on the beach, always in their quiet company. Hours and hours in the dark, with all the time needed for the eye to adapt to the night. It didn’t take long before a camera appeared beside the fishing rod, helping me explore beyond what the human eye can perceive.
My eyes turned to the sky, my feet planted on the ground—they did not push me farther away, but rather ever closer, and I discovered the pleasure of contemplation: a kind of ecstasy born from the joy that certain things existed, simply because they existed and I could witness them. In the landscapes sought, observed, explored, and contemplated, I felt a tension toward the Universe, yet with my feet firmly on Earth.
The difficulty of finding dark, suitable places made me understand to what extent humankind has imposed itself on other species and on the environment, and how much comfort I found in distancing myself from the human world that devours everything. In silence, a sense of belonging to a larger whole emerges—the comfort in the inevitable cycle of life and the communion with the Universe. The sky thus became the natural extension of my home.
Experiences of listening, searching, and contemplating have the power to grant awareness: the awareness of feeling infinitely small within the infinitely vast, yet also infinitely large within the infinitely small.
The Sun is the star of our solar system; there are 4 billion stars in the Milky Way, and ours is only one among billions of galaxies in the Universe. In this scale of immensity, each of us remains unique and unrepeatable. There has never been anyone like us in the history of the Universe, nor will there ever be.
This is what I think when I stand beneath the sky: I cherish slipping into a state of wonder, and comforting my human nature. And this is why anyone, bringing themselves along, may see their own emotions reflected in these images—and perhaps experience the undeniable truth of being precious, unique, thinking beings, temporary guests, and often desecrators of a beautiful place.
Alessia Scarso
“Whoever learns to feel the rapture and radiance of things generates, in turn, radiance and rapture and provokes destinies.” (Christian Bobin)
The Astronativity is a Nativity diorama, meaning a model that reproduces a real or imagined scene in miniature. In this papier-mâché version depicting the traditional Nativity, the most distinctive feature is the sky, where the constellations of the year 7 B.C. have been faithfully reconstructed to scale using optical fibers, with star brightness differentiated through 1 mm, 1.5 mm, and 2 mm filaments.
Above the Nativity grotto, the astronomical conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn in the constellation of Pisces is represented. The depiction of the “Star of Bethlehem” mentioned in the Gospel of Matthew as a comet, however, is attributed to Giotto in the 14th century—an interpretation likely influenced by his having witnessed the passage of Halley’s Comet in 1301 A.D.
“Astri del Ciel” is a special series of cyanotype prints.
Cyanotype is an early photographic printing process. A few minutes of exposure to sunlight activate the iron salts brushed onto the paper. When the sheet is developed simply by rinsing it in water, the image emerges in a Prussian blue monochrome.
It is an entirely handcrafted process, making each print unique.
ALESSANDRABRAFA.COM – Può un percorso espositivo provocare la catarsi? – 2/11/2021
COELUM ASTRONOMIA – “Ad Sidera. C’era una volta celeste”, nostalgia del cielo stellato – 20/10/2021
AVVENIRE – Stelle e sogni, ecco la Volta Celeste di Alessia Scarso – 26/9/2021
BIANCA MAGAZINE – Uno sguardo verso il cielo con le foto di Alessia Scarso – 24/9/2021
| title | AD SIDERA. Once upon a Sky |
| year | 2021 |
| place | Former Convento del Carmine, MODICA |
| Country | Italy |
| producted by | Fondazione Teatro Garibaldi Modica |
| curated by | Paolo Nifosì and Tonino Cannata |
| with the participation of | Ilde Barone |
| and of | Pictores Caeli |
| music | Marco Cascone |
| installation project | Alessia Scarso |
| installation | Galleria Lo Magno |
| press agency | Medialive |
| main sponsor | www.bonajuto.it www.mutika.it |