Lucrezia Cantelmo

White Rainbow

The project is about the widely unrepresented and yet discriminated category of Drag Queens. It revolves around people who choose to lead a double life and who are often forced to show themselves in a way that does not represent them in order to conform to society. This is a project that speaks about the human fragility of a person when their man-persona is shown, and their security when the woman-persona comes out. White Rainbow also concerns the ‘Ddl Zan’ (Disegno di Legge - “Draft of Law”). In recent months in Italy, we have been consistently treated with a wave of current events that depict violence against the LGBT community. Ddl Zan is a proposal to prevent and combat discrimination and violence based on sexual orientation, gender and gender identity. It is the Zan bill which, already approved in the House of Commons in November 2020, is currently in the Senate Justice Committee while the public debate rages, with divisions within Parliament and the political world. Today in Italy there is still no law that protects against hate crimes for homophobia.

My intended goal is to achieve shared awareness and personal growth. Working with people from the LGBT community makes you aware of dynamics that are often silenced. At the same time, after furthering my knowledge in this yet-young field of the humane experience, it is easy to find points of contact and things in common and to create an important bond in work environments and in life. I believe that by knowing the person you take pictures of, it is easier to get their true essence out. My second goal is to make people think, even if briefly, about the struggles and conditions of an un represented category of the human society.  I would like my audience to perceive the strength and style of these people behind the shots, as well as the fragility, the uncertainty and the desire to go unnoticed.

As I approached the development of my original in fieri idea, I always imagined it as a piece for visual exhibitions. It's a project that could also definitely work as a book once I will be collecting many more examples of different Drag Queens. At the moment I imagine this project to be exhibited in a very large room and to have these very large printed images hanging on the walls so that they can attract the attention of the viewer. The project is intended for a wide audience: with its simplicity and power of the visuals, it would be the perfect medium to teach and educate wider audiences. The interview factor makes it more accessible as it is easier to empathise. I consider it absolutely a current project and therefore I intended it for any ethnicity and nationality, but in particular I would dedicate it to the Italian public, which being more narrow-minded, needs to normalise and overcome its fear of the different.

My project is based on a series of portraits that take place in pairs. I was inspired by Diane Arbus as she photographed the LGBT community. Another inspiration came specifically from an Australian photographer, Aaron Walker, who photographed some Drag Queens before and after the "transformation".

https://www.gay.it/dragformation-foto-trasformazione-drag Aaron Walker series. https://www.aaronwalkerphotography.com/personal#/dragformation/

Diane Arbus references: 

Title: Resign

Lucrezia Cantelmo works is a series of portrait in black and white. The composition is characterized by a particular direction of the light, specifically it comes from above of a mirror in which the subjects reflect themselves. Each portrait is an exploration of a different mood, movement and pose, it depends on how people are living the situation of corona virus related to their artistic work. Lucrezia takes pictures of individual figures and groups of people. She invite viewers to project their own interpretation, but raise important questions of identity and what has been set aside. The portraits have a timeless quality since the project can affect any period, not only the pandemic. Her figures are mostly portrayed without any specific style to recreate the absence of identity and aspiration. In every portrait there is a symbolic gesture that recall the closure of a dream in a drawer. 

The project is about the situation we are living. It is about Corona virus but I wanted to present it in a different way. The subjects in the pictures will be people, specifically artists. The field of art is the most affected by the pandemic. The project consists of a series of portraits in black and white. Each person is positioned in front of a mirror, looking at the reflection with an expression that can vary from seriousness to discomfort to sadness. Each person represents a different artistic field. There is music, dance, theater and others. For example, the dancer is holding ballet slippers which she poses in a box at the foot of the mirror. This is a symbolic gesture to explain how the artists have "hung up their shoes" or "closed a dream in the drawer”. This, moreover, can even go beyond the pandemic. Everyone may have had to put aside a dream or aspiration for any reason. In this case, it was for something bigger than them.

I would like those who look at my work to think about what has been taken away from them by the pandemic and the lockdown. My project also wants to be a provocation and a moment of reflection, but only the artistic field will be treated as we are artists and what could be sacrificed was precisely art. At the same time, people could reflect about the dramatic situation we are all living and the severity of it. Anyone who has had to give up something, there are those who have lost more and those less. I would like people to reflect on who has lost a lot more than them without wasting time complaining.

I imagine this project in an exhibition as the intent is also to raise awareness and empathy for the jobs of the show that have been considered as the least “necessary". This project is for everyone who can see themselves in it.

The project is about the situation we are living. It is about Corona virus but I wanted to present it in a different way. The subjects in the pictures will be people, specifically artists. The field of art is the most affected by the pandemic. The project consists of a series of portraits. Each person is positioned in front of a mirror, looks at himself with an expression that can vary from seriousness to discomfort to sadness. Each person represents a different artistic field. There is music, dance, theater and others. For example, the dancer is holding ballet slippers which she poses in a box at the foot of the mirror. This is a symbolic gesture to explain how the artists have "hung up their shoes" or "closed a dream in the drawer". I would like those who look at my work to think about what has been taken away from them by the pandemic and the lockdown. My project also wants to be a provocation and a moment of reflection, but only the artistic field will be treated as we are artists and what could be sacrificed was precisely art. I imagine this project in an exhibition as the intent is also to raise awareness and empathy for the works of the show that have been considered as the least "necessary".

I am going to present it as if it were in an exibition. The pictures will be printed but there will be the presence of a mirror as the last “frame” and a box at the bottom of it. So people can interact with the project trying to feel the sensation of leaving something that represent themself. I saw a lot of exibitions in which mirrors were the main attraction. In my project this is not going to happen because the mirror has the same importance of the pictures. It is just a way to take consciousness of what project is about if the images are not enough. One example of “mirror” exibition is one I saw at the Tate Modern Museum. 

Obviously, Edward Krasinski had another intention doing this art work. The installation displayed here consists of 12 suspended mirrors of equal size. A continuous line of blue tape runs along the walls and the surface of each mirror. The tape is applied at a fixed height of 130cm. It integrates the mirrors with their surroundings, erasing the difference between real and reflected space. The rows of overlapping mirrors generate a sense of movement in which the space seems to recede and advance, depending on the viewpoint of the spectator, who is also reflected in the work. We both want to involve people in a relationship with mirrors and, in turn, viewers with the works that surround them.

I would like to have a print that is almost life size, to make the spectator's engagement more realistic.

As for the biding of the book, it was hand-bound following a technique called "Chinese", here the illustration: 

This biding mode is very simple but despite this, it requires some manual skill, as the pages must be sewn together. For my book I used twine. Initially I had thought of a softer and more colorful fabric. Later, however, the string seemed to me an element that gave the idea of ​​strength and not the delicacy I had previously thought of. Also, I liked that the twine bound the sheets which were of a color similar to papyrus. 

The photos were printed at 12 x 18 cm in order to have two in one page. What did not satisfy me with the final result was just having glued the images on the pages of the book. I should have printed the photos directly on the sheet in order to facilitate the page turning.

This is a project born from the union of my ideas about the world of women and from Virginia Woolf's book "Mrs Dalloway". I believe that today, despite the progress made, women still have a tortuous path compared to men. In this project I wanted to veilly show the routine of a young London woman. The colors change during the day becoming colder and colder. From this I wanted to reveal his exhaustion that accumulates. I consider her, however, a strong woman who manages not to neglect any aspect of her life and that at the end of the day the rewards are very few. 

Mrs Dalloway is a book written precisely by Virginia Woolf published in 1925. This tells the story of an elderly woman who strolling through London reflects on her life and on the choices made, sometimes perhaps naively. 

I immediately made a comparison between them. They are of an opposite age but both reflect on their life with two different points of view. One thinks about the past and regrets, the other thinks about the future and hope. The protagonist of my story is a woman like many others. She is not in a precarious situation, she is simply not satisfied yet and must double the effort to get where she wants. My relationship with the subject of the photos developed during the creation of the project itself. I knew this girl but I wasn't confident. I didn't know anything about her or her habits. We have scheduled three days to share the job. One day I followed her only in the morning, another day only in the afternoon, another one at night. I was his shadow, without being noticed or disturbing. 

Virginia Woolf's book was my main reference. In addition to this, the idea of ​​portraying someone from behind has always fascinated me. In this case this idea was fundamental because my young woman did not have to have a defined identity. I wanted to give the viewer the opportunity to identify themselves. So, going back to the shot, several artists have adopted this point of view. I thought of Caspar David Friedrich's Wanderer above the Sea of ​​Fog (1818), Man Ray's Violon d'Ingres (1924) or also the Danish Vilhelm Hammershøi author of innumerable intimate and delicate interiors in which silent female figures move (often wife Ida). 

Title: INVOLUTIONARY PROGRESS

Involutionary Progress is an oxymoron in that – despite the evolution of contemporary civilisation – lack of care is still vastly shown in many areas of societies. In this project, each dish shows an actuality fact that concerns the whole world population but that started from one country.

I have analysed this idea of disparity and unbalance through the theme of healthcare in China, from which the spread of Coronavirus started: rice represents the large population of this country, while the dispersion of soy sauce sauce stands for the algorithmic widening of the scale through which the Covid-19 infection reached every bit of population. I then drained it at the base of the dish to be also seen as the blood shed by the pandemic.

The fish represents the pollution of the seas. I thought of locating it in Nordic areas such as Norway.Norway is among the most concretely active countries in the protection of the ecosystem and liquid assets. The Norwegian government is working hard, through the tools of international cooperation, to ensure that plastic waste exporters obtain prior approval from the importing country and provide more detailed information on the volume and type of waste they intend to treat.

The third picture is about Italy, as can be clearly seen from the pasta dish seasoned with tomato sauce and basil. This dish, with the presence of black olives, represents immigration and in particular the landings of Lampedusa. In Italy we have always complained about having to welcome these people, forgetting that they come to our country to escape the war, or certainly not comfortable  situations.

The theme of violence against women was treated through unleavened bread which is a characteristic food of Africa. The black string that sews the two sides represents female mutilation; in early May 2020, in fact, mutilation becomes illegal in Sudan.

The hot dog is connected to the USA and the weapons problem: in this country it is possible to buy firearms at normal market. For this reason, the hot dog appears to have a gunshot wound.

The images all have a frame that reinforces the idea of ​​three-dimensionality, inspired by the photographer Elad Lassry. I was also inspired by Sophie Calle’s series Chromatic Diet, in regards to colours: I tried to use them in a way that could recall those of the country that I would go to examine. 

As for the installation plan, the images are positioned side by side in horizontal order, with a single light coming from above that creates the shadow through the frame.