Nadia Galbiati from Milan
Your new daily ritual…
Since everything stopped, and for me the lockdown started from 12 March, interrupting various work activities and ongoing projects, everything moved to my studio-laboratory. As in an early August time, a period in which everyone leaves the city and there is more silence around, the rhythms have changed. At the beginning, so suddenly, still dragged by the maximum speed of normal Milanese life which tries to combine many activities to be carried out simultaneously in a short time, I had a strong refusal to be in the laboratory. I took back the house, of the library, of a normal life, domestica. Days marked by the need for a new cleaning organization, archiving, gardening and hours of reading the dozens of catalogs and books purchased and still waiting for my attention. I tried to find myself again. Then I found a different tranquility, wake up late and then work until sunset. I no longer put the watch on, looked through the agenda. Just a few Skype appointments, fewer and fewer phone calls, the world remained outside my home and studio. I have regained time to think and reflect, taking advantage of the silence, which here in the Milan area is usually very rare. Beautiful days and lots of time to work alone, between drawings, pieces of iron and tools.
How your way of working has changed?
The strong emotions and heartbreaking images we saw online and on TV touched me deeply. They are born in me, nowadays, reflections on the path taken and the choices that brought me this far. So I continued to work on some sculptures already under construction in the series Right Angle. The continuation of my research reworks architectural fragments in plastic form to highlight the relationship between built form and the space that surrounds it, the urban space that belongs to me. But I also decided to reanalyze my path, my poetics. Reread the works and interventions from more than ten years ago, in particular starting from a project of 2003. It was an abandoned path, interrupted, some small bronzes produced following an exhibition-performance. They arose from the analysis of some photographic shots of bodies moving in nature, of human energies that create a new space-place. If I had continued that path? And if, like in a movie, I would go back and finish that project, working on that content, those concepts, those gestures, now what would my research look like? What and why made me change direction? This is also an opportunity to reopen a broken channel, to resurface an abandoned path of my creativity, and I'll see where it takes me.
We are dealing with a new time and space. What are you discovering or rediscovering about yourself?
I'm rediscovering it in myself, even stronger, the desire that art is always the lighthouse that guides my navigation. In hard times like these, where I saw opening exhibitions canceled and other projects with dates to be decided (as they say at the moment), I understood that it will still be the art system, with all its flaws and difficulties, my scenario. In creativity I will always find a safe haven. Everything will be different, in the ways and times of work, but art will always have a fundamental role.
When all this ends: one thing to do and one thing to never do again?
Absolutely worth doing, as soon as possible, leave for a beautiful journey of nature and art. The one always dreamed of and always postponed. It's an obvious but inevitable desire. And certainly not to do is to forget this period. I will treasure the thoughts and emotions felt in this situation of stasis. I will always carry with me the images and discussions made at home and with friends via the web on the choices of our society, health as a primary good, the conservation of the planet and education for sustainability and respect for everything and everyone.
Nadia Galbiati born in 1975 nell’hinterland milanese, where he lives and where he created his laboratory. Graduated in Sculpture at the Brera Academy of Fine Arts in Milan. Continuously studying contemporary languages through courses and workshops, from 1998 with Eliseo Mattiacci to the most recent with Ugo La Pietra and Paolo Icaro. His poetics develops on the relationship between Space and Matter, in the production of sculptures, installations and graphics. In curriculum fiere, collective and personal exhibitions; in 2018, Places at the E3 contemporary art gallery (BS) which in the catalog documents the installation at the MAM museum (MN) and, then, in 2019 the staff Fragments of the city curated by Alberto Fiz, at the Francesco Messina Studio Museum in Milan, of which the presentation of the publication that documents it will be presented shortly. His works are present in public and private collections. www.nadiagalbiati.eu