Aspirations, ambitions  and anecdotes of Cosio transformed into  sculptures radiating  with life and light

I arrived in Cosio without knowing a single one of the inhabitants, and nothing of their lives. I had some creative materials, some postcards for the villagers, and the will to know and listen to people and their stories — because my principal resources for making art are humans and their dreams, and the landscape. 

In the first days of the residency, I got to listen to and to know some of the Cosiesi, to understand what they want and dream about in their village, using the same kind of operations realised with my postcards. After this psychological observation, I created, with Hansko the first Dreamcatcher…

Dream to Fly Away; an alarm that shows the desire to leave Cosio because it’s dying, because there is nothing, not even a school. I don’t like this dream but it is the first and the youngest that I found, I have to accept it as it is. For this work, we combined a hanging sculpture of translucent film with a goat hide drum made by Anna and Linda, two girls from the village. The drum was played by the wind blowing  a stone tied to a rope.

The second dreamcatcher is made with ‘high quality scrap’ (a phrase coined by Hansko when he saw me recover materials and stories for creating the dreamcatchers) and the story of a man trapped in a morning routine and a tie, who feels free only in Cosio and its natural landscape. The double reality of this person struck me; what he does for a living and what he does for pleasure.

The third dreamcatcher was a sign for a little square named Piazzetta Alfieri, a place in the upper part of Cosio which I discovered talking to Nanda, who lives across the street. This square is surrounded by houses in good condition and others at risk of collapse, a contrast that I wanted point out with my work.

– Roberto De Luca