We inhabit the body and at the same time experience it as a tool to get to know the outside world.
Today it is a battlefield, a point of fragility to attack other people because it is perceived as a weak element for everyone."
I think that in this scenario the body can save us because every individual has a different body history, a different body experience, and one's identity cannot be traced back to the body experience alone.
Every individual must have the possibility to change their body freely and know that this choice does not change everyone's definition of themselves.
We decide what the body is, it is always many things and many variables over time.
Teresa Pilato
The work ‘non-mantello’ is a physical collage in which a development of meaning can be followed.
Below are women who are unable to free themselves from the cultural imposition that forces them to dress according to religious wishes.
From these women a voice is raised, a voice that for years was silenced by the moral police and media channels.
This voice, however, has managed to emerge more in the last months of 2022, thanks to the strength of all the women who have protested and pushed the violence they have suffered to one side; by moving it, they have highlighted their situation and made women and men from other countries, from other cultures, aware of their right to be able to be themselves*, even through their own bodies.
These voices have brought about a turning point, a reality in which women can free themselves from the ‘cultural cloak’ to a ‘no cloak’ situation and be able to be themselves and tell their souls also through their bodies.
‘non-mantello’ is a composition created for the exhibition ‘Corpi Scomodi’ created by the Innesco collective in December 2022.
The exhibition united 115 artitst* and progettist* from various fields who created works interpreting the theme of the body. The exhibition lasted three days during which there were also talks, workshops and lectures. The body-related reflection I developed in the last months of 2022 is related to the female body, specifically that of all the Iranian women who in those months were fighting for their rights, to be themselves by freely showing their bodies.
Following the death in September 2022 of Masha Amini, Iranian women increased the pace of their demonstrations that challenged the obligation to wear the veil, the hijab. In demonstrations during those months, many women burnt the veils they are forced to wear, cut locks of their own hair, in a gesture that became a symbol of their anger.
The poster was exhibited for a fortnight at the ‘A kind of future ’ exhibition in Turin during the Graphic Days festival. The work was selected from the call for artists run by Nelogia. Neologia is a project of Graphic Days that aims to create a showcase space presenting young Italian* talents in the world of visual design today.
