A project that results in an installation that aims to represent the unpredictable situations that often need to be addressed as human beings. The artist wants to underline that it is certainly illusory to expect to find oneself in situations of comfort and personal safety throughout one’s life, as is, on the other hand, a condition of uncertainty and suffering.
The question to which Micaela Legnaioli alludes, after all, is about the nature of the case that governs the lives of men: “All of us in the time that we are given to live, like the leaves, travel around the world, regardless of our will, in conditions that we try to control but that larger forces condition and establish the path. How much of this condition is part of a predetermined project and how much is the result of the randomness of the moment?
The installation presents a group of leaves arranged on a wall that symbolizes the place where ideally we all live, but only for a defined time. The leaves represent us, all different individuals, but together we are at the mercy of the wind of life that drags us to places unknown to us. The leaf with its existence represents growth, fertility, time that passes and therefore the inevitability of change and renewal. The ancients used the leaves for decorative purposes and the artists always inserted crowns or bouquets in their sculptures and paintings. In all cultures, leaves allude to highly symbolic meanings with, at times, presumed healing and protective powers. In Micaela Legnaioli’s installation there are fifty leaves, each of which comes from a different species of plant, made of plaster and resin. What they have in common, beyond the differences in shape and size, is the colour white, which underlines the common link, the belonging to the same destiny. Their arrangement is also random and temporary, to fully convey the very meaning of the installation. When the wind arrives, in the end, it will spread each one in a different direction.
Onelia Onorati
