TOlla Steam factory in Milan, until November 10, the photography exhibition of the Paduan artist Vagrancy reveals the bodies of some people suffering from neuropathy Charcot-Marie-Tooth. A pathology that is the starting point of a deep and subtle reflection on human weakness and the beauty of recognizing it in everyone, without hiding it
“I remember when I was a child, on the beach, I invented a game: I had to look for a leg as elegant as my mother’s and my aunt’s. To me their legs were beautiful, I didn’t understand why they wanted to cover them. It was at that moment that I discovered a word that would enter my life forever: Charcot-Marie-Tooth”, explains Alice Babolin, aka Aliteia.
This is its genesis The Ballad of Human MutationsAliteia’s first solo exhibition on stage at the Fabbrica del Vapore (Cultural Beehive) until November 10, 2023. Organized in collaboration with the ACMT-Network for Charcot-Marie-Tooth Disease and in collaboration with PROSSIMI Srl Impresa Sociale ETS, it focuses on Charcot-Marie-Tooththe most common of the hereditary neuropathies but at the same time a rare and little-known pathology, affecting the nerves of the peripheral nervous system, compromising the motor, sensory and/or reflex functions of the legs and arms.
A disease that the artist knows first hand, from the experience of family members affected by it. This is exactly where the endoscopic research that gave shape began The Ballad of Human Mutations.
“This is a project arising from my experience and completed thanks to the collaboration with the ACMT-Rete per la Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease OdV, an association made up of people affected by Charcot-Marie-Tooth and his supporters. The images in this exhibition come from a circle in which some people from the union participated: I asked them to expose certain areas of the body that they usually hide, places that they are ashamed of and which instead contain deep beauty and humanity.” Truth continues.
Through his exhibition 20 photos medium-large shape and asculptural installation for a specific space – “taken from the cast of my aunt’s leg”, the artist explains – the exhibition explores the concept of “non-conformity of the body”, questioning what defines its traces, the perimeter within which we move. The protagonists of the black and white portraits are hands and feet that intertwine, giving shape to a dance, a sweet movement that unfolds throughout the room. A ballad, as the title of the work suggests. The exhibition also features behind-the-scenes photos of the practical performance from which the footage was born.
An exhibition that is a manifesto of Aliteia’s sensibility: multifaceted artist and experimenter, Alice Babolin; perceives art as a vehicle for knowledge and transformation. His stage name, Vagrancy, comes from the word True (truth), which in Greek literally means “the state of not being hidden; the state of being visible.” Aletheia is the truth that cannot be hidden, just like its meaning The Ballad of Human Mutations: a work that wants to reveal a truth of the body that makes no sense to hide since it is the carrier of identity, diversity, deep humanity.
“Aliteia has achieved a very complex task: to expose people by letting them show body parts that they usually want to hide, that they are ashamed of. However, this is not an exhibition about Charcot-Marie-Tooth: it is an exhibition about fragility and the importance of not hiding it, but transforming it into an element of expression of your true self,” explains the curator. Alicia Viola.
A deeply feminine photographic project, as the artist herself explains, that wanted to capture the turmoil and doubts of people affected by Charcot-Marie-Tooth, while broadening the conversation to all people who feel that they do not follow aesthetic models which reduce the breadth of the infinite shades of beauty. “It is not a comprehensive report. Inclusion presupposes the presence of a boundary. Rather, it is about expanding, broadening and reaching out to all those who feel non-conforming, who are uncomfortable with who they are. Their fragility is part of being human. We are all fragile and imperfect and it’s great that way,” concludes Aletiia.