The installation is composed of a work by Giuseppe de Mattia and a video by Luca Coclite. The work includes a shrine with inside some clothes found along the coast of the lower Salento, enclosed and preserved by time, and a video in which, on the same strip of land, is captured an imposing winter storm.

De Mattia retrieves clothes found among the stones and rocks at the foot of the old colony Scarciglia, on the extreme strip of land of the Cape of Leuca. He picks them up, washes them in the sea as if to decree a new life and then takes care of them again, mending them as if they had to be put back into use.

In a metaphorical and romantic gesture he takes care of the waste of time, of what somewhere, in front of that coast, has been lost, abandoned, torn away and makes it a relic of our times. Coclite’s video retraces the iconography of the natural element “sea” with emphasis on its dichotomous, physical and mental meaning. The latter are the filters according to which the material and spiritual well-being of each individual must pass first and foremost.

In the constellation of antithetical symbols, ranging from romanticism to today, the sea contains a myriad of meanings capable of triggering an indefinite series of opposing feelings. In the negative sense, for example, it is the separation and the alienation; the stormy sea is a reflection of human conflict. On the contrary, the sea perfectly translates the desire or the will to free oneself from social or community limits.

The crossing of the sea is a painful journey that is elevated by care.

The work is realized with the support of Ramdom, within the project “Investigation on the Extreme Lands”.