Davide Dal Sasso: Despite their diversity, your chosen means of expression reveal a recurring subject: the earth. In your works the earth appears as a surface but also as the seat of human activity, especially in light of ancestral and physical conditions: what we do happens in the world and also happens through repeated returns to the earth.

Paola Anziché: Even if we are in touch with the earth, in most cases we do not realize what we are stepping on. It is rare to see what is on the ground. Even more so is to pause and to find out what is in it. Under our feet, there is a whole range of activity we neglect. While we do things on earth, we do not care that in addition to being on it we are also a part of it, as we are deeply connected to it. For example, I am thinking of a smell or scent: something that is in the world also becomes part of us, such that we are in direct contact with the earth.

DDS: What you have been developing, for more than ten years now, is an artistic practice that favors receptivity by offering more possibilities to have different experiences.

PA: Yes, because for me art is pure curiosity. It is the constantly renewed pleasure of being able to know: it is the very joy of discovering what will happen when entering into a relationship with certain materials or being part of a certain activity.

DDS: Do you think the role you assign to curiosity can also be translated into your way of working?

PA: Absolutely! First of all, I am interested in giving space to discovery: the more stimuli there are, the more I can understand how things are going, without knowing what will happen. Everything happens gradually in parallel with the development of the work. Furthermore, I think that the very possibility of creating a work of art is not only linked to what I do concretely but also – and perhaps, even more so – to the intertwining of thoughts that arise before making it and accompany it during processing. This is the sense of possible craftsmanship (know-how acquired over time), or let us say an issue that is very familiar to me both with respect to how I grew up and also to the possibility that feeds all my work: to always be discovering something.

DDS: What do you think about technology?

PA: As soon as it is used, it reveals itself for what it is: old, since it soon becomes as obsolete as we naturally are. As for my work, I think of it as a means that I can use and that is linked to another very important tool that we already we have naturally and which we use for our lives: thought.

DDS: Your defense of curiosity also seems to find new forms in the continuous transformations of your practice into artistic and theoretical research. I mean, along with performances, sculptures, and installations you also organize workshops and are the author of works based on relational and participatory practices.

PA: A really significant change that occurred in my life was the transition from artistic activity oriented
to the production of things to one moved by the interest in relationships: between us and the world,
between people, objects, and materials. I think being receptive and curious means admitting that you
can make many discoveries but also encounter many difficulties. Every time I start a project, I don’t
know how I am going to make it happen: even if I can identify through research the elements that I
will need to carry out the work, I never know what will happen until the end.

DDS: Where does your interest in engaging people come from?

PA: It comes from my being receptive, from the possibility of being surprised by what may happen. This leads me to be together with other people, to involve them in my works, to share experiences with them. Because, after all, what we have in common is life on our planet. For me it is also a matter of cultivating an interest in ecology: namely, we started talking about the earth and it naturally returned.

DDS: Your interest in ecology also reveals how experiences allow your poetics–namely your work program–to be renewed. What clearly stands out is your attention to the body and perception.

PA: You are right. Indeed, I would like to briefly tell you about two very special experiences. I made one in early 2000, when I visited the Ear of Dionysus [L’orecchio di Dioniso] at the Neapolis Archaeological Park in Syracuse. There is a large quarry dug into the tuff where I was able to have an incredible experience based on a sort of translation of my presence into sound: a bit as if it were possible to resonate and listen to each other in space… I had a very marked physical perception of
my body and where I was from. Another truly significant experience occurred while I was in Azerbaijan in 2015. I visited a mosque and I realized what the power of emptiness is, that is, how space for thought can also be devoid of any element. Culturally, we have a different idea of places for a spiritual retreat. In that space, however, you cannot fail to recognize a profound difference: what happens outside is the world; inside the mosque, however, there is silence, stillness, emptiness. The perceptual component is always in the foreground.

DDS: In addition to your attention to relationships with the world and perception, you have also cultivated a keen interest in fabric. It finds expression in your works with fibers, weaves, embroideries; at the same time, it allows you to develop a much broader reflection.

PA: The fabric is conceivable as if it were our architecture, since it concerns how we dress and also how we direct ourselves towards others. The thought about fabric has developed over time through my works and direct experience with the materials. But some readings were equally decisive. Among these there are some studies by the architect Bernard Rudofsky who in the 1960s had written a book entitled Architecture without Architects (translated into Italian in the mid-1970s). Rudofsky showed how fabric and weaving are the first foundations of architecture–several examples are found in the manufacture of huts–and with this he also highlighted the role of spontaneity, of putting together elements to produce fabrics of various types. A considerable part of my research has also been influenced by his reflections. After all, the intertwining can be done on several levels, not just the physical one.