LUISA SPINA

We are born somewhere, in a certain family, in a certain culture, in a state, a country, a city, a neighbourhood with a specific language and all other peculiarities that become intertwined with our being when we land on the planet. All of these are a reflection of our external bonds and reveal at the same time our freedom in relation to reality. As we journey throughout our life we are confronted with the stories we are being told, with fixed patterns of social behaviour and the structures that are holding everything in place. But what are the stories we tell ourselves? Can we re-imagine our narratives and re-invent the world?  I believe that maintaining an active dialogue between our inner psychological realm and the outer world we can find a renewed connection to ourselves, the planet and other beings and re-claim the word ‘freedom’. 

My artist practice navigates in this inner-outer dialogical osmotic space. Through sculpture, installation, sound and performance. I investigate intimately on different psychological and physical aspects of freedom, touching on themes such as belonging, migration, gender, mental health and environmental issues, working with the idea that the personal is always political. 

Place also reveals our thinking and the existing paradigms that sustains it, it also reflects our external bonds. However we do have the ability to re-shape and re-mould it like sculpture material. Exercising together reflection and self-reflection we can create a space of exchange in which new understandings can emerge. We can come closer to what it is to be a human being, we can connect more deeply with the world and perhaps we can also develop transformative actions sustained by new values and forms of thinking.