LUISA ROTA SPERTI |
Spaventa i passeri ? (iNstallations)
Home > Installations > Spaventa i passeri ? (Does it scare the crows ?)
| As an evolution of the scarecrows game, Dreams in the wind is born. |
|
| Working with Montura: www.montura.it |  |
 |
 |
| Stand Montura - International outdoor fair | Skialper - Montura - Photo by Daniele Lira |
 |
 |
| Mauro Corona - Trento Film Festival | Marina Gallandra - Wide plate |
DREAMS IN THE WIND
Luisa Rota Sperti’s scarecrows
They live between the olive trees and know the local winds, Breva and Tivano, in their perpetual swing. Thus Lario – Lake Como’s ancient name, possibly standing for Lawar, a path carved into the rock – ripples, and the Genius loci awakens. Here he is, the guardian spirit: first he peeks at the lake, then at the mountains above its shores, with mighty Sasso Cavallo, and finally halts, half way up, gazing at the hill of those who dance to the wind. What cute fellows, he thinks to himself; “scarecrows” is the word he hears everybody address them with, as if they should be afraid, whereas towards them he has nothing but tender feelings.
One day he’d seen them arrive, carried by little Luisa who called them by their names. Amazed at himself, because he wasn’t quick-witted as usual, it took him a while to realize that they were the work of her hands. Of Luisa’s hands that knew how to take care of a vegetable garden, but became truly magic once they moved a pencil on a sheet of white paper. So there’s more to it, thought the Genius loci: not only infinite variations of minute details on paper that almost strive to dissect the essence of things, depriving them of any sort of corollary before they turn iron grey, which is probably the colour of all ideas; there were larger shapes as well, three-dimensional ones which had to be outlined, in exciting contrast with the absolute precision of those drawings where nothing was left to chance.
Being accustomed to the extremely dense counterpoint of pencils, to the rigorous polyphony of lines whose wondrous intersections and distinct features could only be fully appreciated by an attentive eye, at a couple of inches’ distance, the Genius loci had been caught offguard, struck hard by the rustic chant of peasants: a catchy affair characterized by exuberant colours which stood out also from afar, even from the nearby hill. Luisa had disrupted him: of all people it was she, the very person who wouldn’t ever stop her search on the paper’s surface, that seemed to have given in to the temptation of the most popular of chats, to that descending path of certain artists who do not feel the suffocating but insuppressible urge to prove to themselves the value of their own works.
Scarecrows, a pair of crossed branches, a piece of wire and whatever happened to be at hand. Partly disappointed and partly curious, the Genius loci had wanted to get closer, and once he was able to see better, he understood that there was something more to those creatures each of which had its own way of telling its personal story. The sheet of an umbrella, a basket, a shirt and a hat: from up close it was possible to recognize them, to remember where they came from and whom they had belonged to. Well, Luisa had not betrayed him, she had not freed herself from her obsession for symbols, and he who had detected the link he was unconsciously looking for, was now happy.
While observing these swaying scarecrows (that were looking one at the other) he had begun to consider them with a feeling of benevolence and one day, while he was moving up the Meria valley to visit the Sasso Cavallo, he’d sat down and dozed off at the entrance of a cave called Ram, to find himself dreaming of men gone mad, of animals in flight and hundreds of little birds that, trembling of fear, found shelter within the friendly folds of Luisa’s scarecrows.
Carlo Caccia
Does it scare the crows ?
January 2014: We are 230 and more will come...
 |
|
 |
 |
| Scarecrows on the hill |
Scarecrows working with Montura |
Scarecrows trackings |
Projects with the scarecrows |
SCARECROWS ON THE HILL
The Scarecrows change, through time and seasons, on the hills under the mount Zucco of Mandello.
SCARECROWS WORKING WITH MONTURA
| Working with Montura www.montura.it |
|
|
|
|
|
| Stand Montura | Skialper - Montura | |
 |
 |
|
| Melloblocco 2012 - Montura | Gio’ca Piné - Montura | |
