https://hadashibooks.com/マリーナ・ガスパリーニ%E3%80%80marina-gasparini/

 

 

On my first trip to Japan, I met very kind people every day, without whom I would have gotten lost while looking for places and things. I don’t speak a word of Japanese, and this leads to many comical misunderstandings, which I fantasize about building surprising chains of meaning around.
Ever since I read the theme of the Omachi Program for this 2016 residency, I have been thinking about the ambiguity of the word ‘rice’ in my language. In Italian, the word ‘riso’  has the double meaning of ‘rice’ and ‘to laugh’.  In this case, the two meanings are so closely intertwined that we are accustomed to throwing rice at newlyweds after wedding ceremonies. This reminds me of the two references of the word ‘kohi’ for ‘colored carp’ and ‘love’.
I know I shouldn’t say this, because I’ve forgotten his name, but there is a Russian artist and philosopher who invented a discipline centered on the belief that all similar sounds are necessarily connected in every language in the world and, in the same way that, according to iconology, this happens in the field of visual signs…

In his ‘Poetics’, the Greek philosopher Aristotle talks about comic art, which often focuses on ambiguities between similar sounds but different meanings. Once again, while the Christian religion imposes absolute seriousness, much of the iconography of saints is based on translation errors from Latin to modern Italian. We have different reasons to laugh, and what is humorous in one country may not be laughable in another.
That’s why I wanted to organize a workshop on the theme of laughing.The Otafuku mask and the color pink signify the sacred time, the one dedicated to the celebration and thanksgiving for the rice harvest.

The  workshop   left a rich and deep change in my studio, and  I feel lucky for so the precious contribution of people, mostly young, who attended in this step of the project ” the Riso rosa Blessing”. 

 

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