Roma Speciale - Aliens in movement in Rome
Ilaria Paccini
The project, which aims to increase the awareness and active participation of citizens, intends to inform and raise public awareness on the problem of invasive alien species: that is, those species of animals and plants brought by man - by mistake or intentionally - outside their area of origin, creating dangerous damage to environmental health, biodiversity and therefore to the economy and public health.
My artistic project consists of 15 live painting oxidized aluminium panels (measuring 118 inches per 78 inches high) depicting, each of them, an IAS (Invasive Alien Species). Each species will be created in a different square in the historic centre of Rome, where the public will have the possibility to see the live painting performance and to listen, at the end of the work, to the intervention of an expert who illustrates the specific species and its damage to the biodiversity, caused by its uncontrolled spread. The photographic portrait of the audience will become part of the work, since mankind must be perceived as species among species, while the pictorial technique represents the dynamism of nature.
The oxidation is left free to act, since it changes the picture over the time until its consummation, reminding us that the mankind isn’t eternal. Globalization makes ideas, technology and goods accessible to the mankind everywhere on the Earth, but our unscrupulous actions result in the destruction of entire ecosystems. The extinction of biodiversity is a shadow that constantly follows the idea of absolute freedom through which we believe to manage the environment and to appropriate each and every resource.
Short bio of Ilaria Paccini:
I began to paint live at the age of 8 years following my parents, both artists, in the extemporaneous painting competitions. My cultural training takes place at first in contact with the Renaissance masters: Piero Della Francesca, Donatello, Masaccio, Michelangelo and then, in 1992, I moved to Rome where I studied not only the masters of the Baroque and Neoclassical period but especially the Greek and Roman works of art participating in many archaeological excavation campaigns in Rome: Foro di Nerva – Ostia Antica – Santo Stefano Rotondo.
My studies are both artistic and theoretical: in Rome I attended the School of the Art of the Medals and graduated in the History of Contemporary Art at the University “La Sapienza” with a final dissertation on the medals by Manzu. For many years I have been dealing with sculpture, medals, restoration and decoration (Villa Medici in Rome - Villa Bernini in Arcore - Villa Reale in Monza) and started to collaborate with specific project for Italian Archaeological Museums as Museum of Ancient Sculptures Giovanni Barracco (Rome), National Archaeological Museum of Civitavecchia (Roma), Museum of Trebula Mutuesca and Roman Amphitheatre in Monteleone Sabino (Rieti).
In 2021 I began art-installations about the Israeli-Palestinian war. Away from the Art Gallery networks, I installed my art-works in the historical town centre of the village Poggio Moiano (Rieti) by setting up an outdoor art gallery while, in the historical street of via Giulia (Rome), finally I made an art installation in opposition to the system of speculation in the art environment.
In my current exhibitions, I experiment with the painting on oxidized steel plate by which I made several paintings, among which portraits. In 2023 I won the extemporaneous painting in Poppi (Ar) and the extemporaneous street art painting “Benches of artists” for the Municipality of Pratovecchio (Ar); in addition, I was selected for the first edition of the Roman Riviera Biennial Festival and for the exhibition in Palazzo Ruspoli (Cerveteri). Finally, I won the Call application “Cultures in Movement” for a project in partnership with ISPRA. Lately, I exhibited my artworks in Roskilde (RoS Gallery) with the collaboration of Thorvaldsen’s Museum of Copenhagen, after attending an artistic residency to study the sculpture’s technique of Bertel Thorvaldsen.