A maggio non basta un fiore (A flower is not enough in May)
26 May to 26 June 2024
Critique sheet
“Two is not the double but the opposite of one, of its solitude. Two is an alliance, a double thread that is not broken“1. The passage, taken from a well-known poem by Campania author Erri De Luca, seems to translate into poetry the relationship that binds Daniela and Francesca Manca, sisters and artistic duo, united by an empathic correspondence that goes beyond the boundaries of parental ties and manifests itself in a sensitive and rigorous poetics, capable of exploring the creative and symbolic potential of nature through the filter of biographical and autobiographical narratives, capable of conveying collective feelings and emotions. The production, the happy outcome of a harmonious blend of symbology and creative design, evokes essential archetypal elements connected to the concept of nature as a mother/shelter, and is revealed in shared practices repeated over time, pertinent to the domestic, intimate and family sphere, such as sewing, embroidery and earth modelling.
The Manca’s research can thus be placed along the line traced by Giuseppe Penone’s words “A sharp division between human and nature is a vision forced from reality” and returns complex works, to which a dense emotional component fuelled by personal events is subtended. The works that define the exhibition route converge around two emblematic and polysemic forms: the seed and the nest. The potential energy of the seed, like that of the egg or the chrysalis, is a state of being, an apparently dormant and static force, closed and unfinished, waiting for the nourishment and care that will change its appearance, existence and essence, determining its destiny.
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Each matrix holds a possibility, the promise of a new life, be it a majestic tree, a slender flower, a fragile butterfly or an idea to be planted. The artists crystallise this phase, in which nothing is complete and everything is still hope, in a work consisting of 1,176 bags sewn strictly by hand using unbleached canvas and ivory-coloured organza, which hold seeds of different essences. The gestation of the work is itself a participatory artistic action that the Manca sisters share with their mother: the needle takes up the thread, pierces the fabric, defines new spaces; a ritual repetition that modifies and marks time.
The nest is a primordial archetype, a visual metaphor for the instinct that induces one to build a shelter, a protection, a concrete response to the need to mitigate the sense of vulnerability generated by pitfalls and fears. In Manca’s translation, the lightness of the black organza, the textile matrix of the 4000 pockets that make up the epidermis of the nest, conceals a metal skeleton that evokes Merz’s Igloos and Fuller’s geodesic domes; similarly, the immanent meaning of the work veils another, deeper and more intense truth: The seeds and white flowers of Daucus carota, which in nature by closing in on themselves offer shelter to insects, evoke the caring motherly embrace, a painful reminder for those who had to give up that warmth too soon. Each seed holds the promise of a flower… but in May, one flower is not enough, the apple, peach and pear tree are not enough. […⦌ If one is missing, there is none2. Fuelled by the emptiness of absence, the building of the nest becomes a spiritual exercise, a prayer, the fulfilment of a vow as necessary and due as it is pitilessly admirable, which the artists dedicate to their mother. The courageous final act of the existential parable is fulfilled in the abandonment of the matrix/shelter: the butterfly shatters the cocoon that constrains it to escape the suffering of imprisonment, the egg discloses the time of birth, young maidens offer their wings to the wind, like Daphne consecrated to the metamorphic impetus of nature, but free, peregrine. In May, a flower is not enough… but sometimes a flower is necessary to remind us that ‘to be a Flower, is a profound Responsibility’3, and it is our duty to take care of the womb that gave birth to it.
Anna Rita Punzo
1 Erri De Luca, Il contrario di uno
2 Giovanni Pascoli, È maggio
3 Emily Dickinson, Sbocciare – is the result – meet a flower
Biography
Daniela and Francesca Manca. Born in Oristano, after attending the IstitutoStatale d’Arte Carlo Contini, they continued their artistic studies in Milan, first at the Brera Academy of Fine Arts and later at the Polytechnic, where they developed an interest in the relations between the visual arts and the world of design, the stylistic feature of their production.
Their works weave harmonious dialogues between art and design; planning blends with thoughtful and calibrated creativity to provide new visions and suggest innovative ways of perceiving the reality around us.
In their works, they try to shape poetry through continuous research of a multifaceted nature.
Photographs
