Atávico, the Beginning, an Exhibition by Lucia Calabrino

Every journey has its origin, its starting point, that moment of introspection and deep inquiry. This is the beginning of my path, of my family and territorial history. My father, Luigi Calabrino, born in Ischia, Naples, Italy; and my mother, Giovanna Chillemi, born in Lentini, Sicily, Italy, arrived in Argentina in the 1950s. They were escaping the poverty caused by World War II and settled in Mar del Plata.

It is my intention to address the theme of migration and the relationship with the territory as a site of the emotional and the human. Mar del Plata was the destination for many immigrants from Ischia and Sicily, who settled in the port area known as “Little Italy.” My family’s story unfolds in that context. With this project, I wish to explore my identity, family ancestry, and the artisanal traditions assigned to women. Understanding that the individual bears a mark of the era that transcends it and becomes group history. This visual arts proposal intersects the historical-territorial, linking my hometown in America with those of my ancestors in Europe. In this way, the journey creates an aesthetic travelogue that moves from the map to the territory and from the present to the roots.

I seek the development of a personal grammar, with its units of meaning made up of: a collection of family and contemporary photographic images, letters and maps, dialogues with distant relatives, cultures, natural environments, landscapes, languages, dialects, and countless tangible and intangible atavistic encounters. A conceptual narrative through the re-signification of images proposing a metalectural approach to the work.

For more information, click here.