LAURA VINCI

In Diurna, the artist’s installation Folhas Avulsas [Loose Leaves] (2018), 72 golden leaf sculptures will surround the gallery’s newly opened windows, inviting the city’s natural summer light into the exhibition space. Vinci’s leaves curl, as if frozen mid-motion, eternalizing the movement of a light wind on foliage, and reminding the viewer that summer is followed by fall. According to Vinci, ’Diurna creates a movement of migration by hinting at a transfer of leaves from a virtual autumn in the Southern Hemisphere to celebrate the new season in the North. These scattered, brass-cast, and gold-plated leaves punctuate the architecture of the space, as if blown in through the newly opened windows.’

While it might seem counter-intuitive that objects meant to symbolise transience and movement should be pinned to the wall, the sculptures were carefully designed to allow for them to become a structural component of the gallery space, physically rooting them in their geographic location. As Vinci explains, ‘The loose leaves are attached directly onto the walls by thin pins, like relics of a future in which the singular eccentricities of our Earth have ceased to be noticed. The external light takes shelter in the gallery space, varying in its intensity and tonality and establishing a solar coloration in the environment. Diurna invites the viewer to see themselves as an integral part of this pulsing environment, where the viewer’s own body present within the continuum.’

The political undertone of the exhibition is echoed by the pieces Onde Estamos [Where are we] (2017), and Duas Medidas [Two Measures] (2017). Pinned to the walls, these sculptures of compass and scale (respectively) evoke devices that gauge direction and weight, reiterating the question concerning our current position in the world. Yet the artist also suggests the need for change and transformation by including minute fragments of garnet in these sculptures. The garnet stone, a symbol of motivation and determination, evokes a desire for change. Vinci explains, ‘these small objects configured as measuring tools, can help us continue our journey.’ Therefore, the exhibition’s ultimate message does not concern change or permanence, but the elements that led us to the present and will guide is into the future.