Solo show at Museo Orto Botanico di Roma 26/06 - 31/07 - 2025
“Part of my research, both with and about this particular specimen, was inspired by the idea of constructing a new anatomy of the trunk. Drawing from the study of its hollow cells — actual irrigation channels that form the tree’s xylem — I deepened the frottage technique in an attempt to build a hybrid and imaginative map of the Platanus and its environment. A long creative journey conceived as a vast playground, where even Gianni Rodari’s poem Ci vuole un fiore (set to music by Sergio Endrigo) became a sonic pinnacle and essence. Through video and audio recordings, I then explored, inhabited, and narrated the tree as if it were a large zoomorphic figure, a vital organ, a resonating chamber — organ and organism, sound and breath.” - Francesco Bartoli
“Each work in the exhibition stems from an encounter — and a cohabitation — with the oriental plane tree. They arose from the need to capture, and to translate into multiple formats, its slow process of transformation; a silent and ongoing process to which I sought to give sound, in order to evoke — as the exhibition title suggests — the life that once animated it.” - Francesco Bartoli
