Do You Come Here Often?
Mattia Pajè
Ponte Sanguinario, Spoleto, 2017
Supported by Viaggiatori Sulla Flaminia and Mahler & LeWitt Studios.
[ita]
Per Do you come here often? Mattia Pajè ha trasformato un ponte sotterraneo romano del I secolo A.C., collocando 30 cocorite libere di volare al suo interno. Tra i parrocchetti ha installato diverse serie numeriche in acciaio, che facevano riferimento alle sequenze curative teorizzate dallo pseudo-scienziato russo Grigori Grabovoi, il quale sostiene che i numeri possano guarire svariati disturbi mentali. Attraverso il loro utilizzo, Pajè ha voluto testare la possibilità di generare benessere sui visitatori.
L’evento è stato supportato dai Mahler & LeWitt Studios e ha fatto parte di Viaggiatori sulla Flaminia, manifestazione che si svolge dagli anni ’90 e prende il nome dalla strada romana che porta a nord della città.
[eng]
Pajè responded to the Ponte Sanguinario in Spoleto, a Roman underground bridge reached by a nondescript flight of steps sited in the middle of a busy intersection, by creating an installation titled ‘Do you come here often?’ in which thirty parakeets lived in the bridge for the duration of the exhibition.
Pajè described the installation as an “anomalous habitat” and compared the two arches of the bridge, which are dissected by a metal viewing platform, to the left and right sides of the brain. Placed amongst the parakeets were a series of numbers, cut out in steel, which referenced the healing sequences theorised by the Russian pseudo-scientist Grigori Grabovoi. These sequences purportedly influence mental and psychological illnesses, generating the possibility of mental well-being in the viewer.
The event has been supported and produced by the Mahler and LeWitt Studios. It was part of the Viaggiatori sulla Flaminia series. This series of events, which has been happening since the 1990s, takes its name from the Roman road which leads north from the town. The Via Flaminia facilitated an economic and cultural network — the trade of goods and, importantly, ideas — with a new kind of efficiency. Celebrating that connectivity this series connects several different events, sometimes sharing a theme, across a number of different spaces within a village, a town, a municipality or even across the whole region.
Do You Come Here Often? 30 parakeets, steel numbers, UV and blue lights, dimensions variable; installation view, Ponte Sanguinario, Spoleto, 2017.