Deborah Schamoni

According to some legends, the sea is the home of all that we have lost, where every remnant, every remembrance, trace or echo will one day settle at the bottom. Though memory languishes at times, all this serves to concretely bring to light what has fallen into oblivion, or into that dark room where there are things best left untouched, instincts best left unheeded, fears to shackle, and also all things that incessantly require care and attention.

You want to know, Lenny? [...]
Come on, let’s go down to the basement.
Let’s go down, you and me together.
Then you’ll know who you really are. (1)

Approaching the space like a stage set, one makes an imaginary descent below level zero: Taylor Macklin becomes the hull of a boat where portrayed elements lie in solitude, while all around float spirits of squid, black as coal and filthy like tar, of which there remain only “sweat and tears, or the sea.” (2)

Davide, like a seafarer, sails towards uncharted territories involving different zones of thought, sight and action, without necessarily connecting them in a single radiating source. In the guise of an animist storyteller, he investigates the life of objects that are never orphans or failures, never betrayed or abandoned: a cyclical path that with perpetual motion rises from its own ashes through simple, ephemeral operations, almost invisible gestures carried out, at times, without aim or purpose.

1) Christopher Nolan, Memento, 2000
2) Karen Blixen, as quoted in Reader’s Digest (April 1964)

Curated by Mattia Ruffolo
Text: Taylor Macklin, Zurich
Photos: Taylor Macklin, Zurich