ABOUT 1000
2011
Outdoor installation,
variable dimensions
T-shirts, clips, rope

About 1000 is an installation that takes its theme from the way laundry is hung out to dry in the streets of Venice. The laundry lines are strung with a thousand red garments, T-shirts and other types of clothing, which act as a clear reference to the anniversary of the Unification of Italy. The red shirt, the protagonist of the birth of the Kingdom of Italy, was nothing but a sort of blouse, a work smock worn by workers and artisans. Historical sources indicate that the shirts were handmade using cheap fabric collected by volunteers from a consortium of Uruguayan butchers.
Rather than to the creation of a Kingdom, the installation is a clear tribute to all citizens who, after 150 years, still volunteer to try to address the problems not solved by the government and the market. Making a simple gesture, which consists in the accumulation and elevation of the red garments, the artist tries to establish a connection with Italian “historical reality”, made up of multiple scattered contents that can only be understood when we attempt to establish a relationship between our own history, our life’s experience, and the experience of the world surrounding us.