Contaminazioni. Francesca Pasquali

Bomb Shelter “Vittorio Arrigoni”, Brescia (Italy).

From 16th March to 14th April 2019, part of Meccaniche della Meraviglia 13

The exhibition project, aims to address three fundamental themes of the artist’s work: the use of plastic-industrial recycling materials, that have always characterized his works, the great site-specific installations that the artist realizes ad hoc, adapting the materials to the exhibition space, and the relationship created between works and public, active protagonists protagonisti in the path.

On the occasion of the exhibition Contaminazioni, Francesca Pasquali literally invades the two runners of the Bunker, setting up in one of these the immersive installation Camminando/Contaminando, created in 2010 and made up by about 45 cubic metres of expanded polystyrene in pellets: a beautiful moment of high involvement for the public, called to activate it with its own interaction.

The path will also be invaded by Bozzoli, expanded polyurethane threads, woven and personally wrapped by the artist, adapting them to the space. The works take on natural, plant and animal connotations, and show how the creative gesture can give plastic materials a new life, in constant metamorphosis.

These two elements will finally dialogue with a collective work, realized by Francesca Pasquali during a Workshop on 17 February 2019 at MO.CA in Brescia (Italy), and designed specifically for the Brescia public: the participants, guided by the artist, have made a large canvas about 8 meters long, pictorially experimenting the plastic materials of her research.

Francesca Pasquali

Born in 1980, Francesca Pasquali studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in her native Bologna (Italy), where she graduated in 2006.
Francesca Pasquali’s research spans in the direction of an engaging relationship between organic and inorganic, nature and culture, recycle of materials and their aesthetic redefinition. 
Her research focuses on an observation of natural shapes whose structural texture the artist emulates, transforming plastic, industrial materials into complex and elaborate objects and installations.
So emerges in several cycles of his research, as also demonstrated by the titles of the works that often refer to the materials used.
The Straws case: cut to different lengths, myriad of plastic straws are assembled on wooden panels – or more recently on polished plexiglas – to create vibrating surfaces.
With the Frappe cycle, Pasquali experimented with neoprene, assembling it in spirals mounted on wooden boards or woven in metal mesh. The works belonging to the series of bristles are instead formed by the common plastic bristles, assembled to form soft and compact surfaces.
The works belonging to the series of Setole are instead formed by the common plastic bristles, assembled to form soft and compact surfaces. Recently, the artist has experimented long colored plastic bristles for the site-specific installation Francesca Pasquali for Salvatore Ferragamo exhibited in Milan, London, and finally in Paris during 2016.
The new technologies constitute another fundamental direction of his creative practice that includes music, light and video installations, such as Glasswall, 2015-2016, kinetic installation, audiovideo reactive and interactive, exhibited at the Flux-us exhibition at C.U.BO. Centro Unipol in Bologna (Italy).
Francesca Pasquali also explores different materials, from plastic to noble marble to simple bread, combining specificity of her research with the specificity of the requests of the clients.

In 2013 alongside several Italian artists and curator Ilaria Bignotti, Francesca Pasquali founded the artistic and cultural movement Resilienza italiana, aiming to further the international debate around sculpture among the contemporary and emerging generations of artists.

Her works are present in important private and public collections in Italy and abroad.
In December 2015, the Francesca Pasquali Archive was founded under the Scientific Direction of Ilaria Bignotti, in order to archive, preserve and promote the artist’s works through different projects with public and private institutions, as well as to present her research through innovative systems of communication.

Photographs © Mauro Novaglio and Christian Penocchio
Courtesy Francesca Pasquali Archive FPA, Bologna (Italy)