Sotto al tappeto

Galleria Casciaro temporary exhibit, Bozen

Sotto al tappeto, 2023

Ludovica Faro

120 x 360

Ashes.

The work is made of ashes poured on the pavement in the shapes of intricate carpet designs.

A carpet does not usually cover. It just stays there, an ornament, adorning the house. Maybe you walk on it, and it’s soft. Yes, it softens the ground your feet rest on. But this carpet is hard, isn’t it? The truth is always hard, but there will always be dust under the carpet to cushion the fall.

A loom of medias weaving tightly the intricate threads. Flips them, knots them, twists them. It works them so finely that you can look for a thread, you will know that it’s there, in the midst, but where? Your foot will step on it without even remembering to have looked for it. Your eyes will consume the news without even remembering to have looked for them. But is this really what we do? The carpet lies there, but our feet are free. To walk on it, step on it, walk around it and step over it, or to ask the hands for help to lift it up, and expose what lies underneath.

Yet the carpet is not there. Not anymore, not entirely, not everywhere. There will always be those who sweep away this ash to hide it under another. Now, however, the ash is there. Under everyone’s eyes, out in the open. Why close your eyes, why turn away, why go to the trouble of putting the rug back over it? The causes of the problem are well known. Our lives, however, are now harnessed by the complicated plots of the loom threads, the fabric patterns are the walls of a labyrinth from which there is no way out. Or is it? If in a labyrinth there is an entrance, that will also be the exit. If a rug is in the centre of our living room, it can always be turned over. Take a good look at what’s underneath. Still, you only find things that you knew.

All those intricate designs have always been inside your mind, trying to make you see them, and you partly turn your eyes away, partly deep down you already knew. But still, you stand in front of the TV, ass on the couch and feet on the carpet. Whether it’s uncovered or with everything hidden underneath it doesn’t matter. Your gaze won’t be on it anyway.

“Take shorter showers and turn off the water when you brush your teeth.”

“Don’t eat red meat because it is the main cause of wasted water.” Unspoken. If heard, ignored. It piles up. Ashes under the carpet.

Ashes of a burning world, of lives burning with bitterness from problems not of their own making but that they’re trying to solve. Lives burned while trying to make a difference. News heard, ignored, piled up, ashes under the carpet.

The carpet is not there, yet you don’t want to see the ashes. News upon news consumed. News that end up at the bottom of the pages. Ashes under the carpet.

Ludovica Faro