FOTOGRAFIA EUROPEA 2009 REGGIO EMILIA

INFINITO FA RUMORE ETERNITA FA SILENZIO. 2009

Maria Papadimitriou

curated by Gabi Scardi

Nature, knowledge, time. Maria Papadimitriou has identified a map of concepts rich in different values, which offer multiple connections; in the Mercato Coperto of Reggio Emilia, currently undergoing renovation works, this map has taken on the form of an inhabitable space; some videos showing interviews with children on the concept of space, time and eternity are part of the installation, as well as a collection of second hand books found 

at the market, a kind of jungle made with greenhouse plants and some phrases made with neon fluorescent tubes, another environment again made of recycled objects. In the centre, 

a Möbius strip, the symbol of infinity, made of light, books and recycled materials. Concentrated energy, the sculpture creates an echo of the guiding concepts of the work.

The People’s Choice

Hotel Isola , 2006

A Local Home Away from Home

Hotel Isola consists of a reception desk and a room with a bed. The project is part of a chain of Free hotels that I have installed in unlikely places, offering people a chance to rethink, to take stock and to rest. My work uses these homes away from home not only as places for quiet reflection but also as sites where another community is grouped together around new relationships and ideas. The hotel is open to everyone around the clock: the world’s traveling art community, the Milanese passer-by, the squatter, the tourist, the city dweller and anyone interested in reflecting on public space from a semi-private perspective.

Ultimately, Hotel Isola is also the result of the surrounding community’s conflict with the local urban planners and the Garibaldi-Repubblica building project. While the Isola residents would like to transform the abandoned factory into a community center, the planners would like to tear down the old structure to make way for high-rise commercial towers. My hotel – as a transient space – provides for a home for the Isola residents’ reflections as well as a monument to their history. Apart from one bed, Hotel Isola is filled with objects that I collected from the factory and from the locals. Here, visitors can rest with the past and contemplate the future.