ISABELLA PERS
Isabella Pers’s research has derived, in recent years, from a direct dialogue with citizens and political activists living along coasts and on small islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans where lives are at risk from the gradual but inexorable rise in the sea level. Her paintings bear witness to the dramatic effects of climate change on people’s lives – people who have undergone a transition from the condition of natural paradise to that of the disaster which, as single citizens of this world, we cannot easily avert, if not by reconsidering our lifestyle and attempting to limit the use of fossil fuels. The recent drawings in The Aba series, instead, reproduce the screenshots of several information or tour sites that propose trips to places that are destined to disappear in the ensuing years as a result of the rising tides, Venice included. The invitation proves a mournful one, all things considered, a melancholy summons to enjoy these beauties when we are already on the edge of a precipice. The video Present relates an action created by the artist together with immigrants who had escaped from countries at war or who were victims of dictatorships. It is a walk which took place towards the top of a hill on the Carso, alongside one of the First World War trenches, the signs of which, dug into the ground, seem the scars of a ravaged body. They represent symbolically the useless and over-reassuring frontiers traced by men. The action thus becomes the story of a meeting between different worlds and cultures, but also expresses a wish for solidarity and understanding that goes beyond the limits traced by diffidence.
