IRDL Ø3

Lucerne (2014)

Irdl Ø3 (Il rito del limone) is an itinerant project shaped each time by the specific qualities of different places and seasons, which provide the underlying framework for the construction of a ritual space. Participants are free to choose the expressive form they consider most appropriate to convey the countless atmospheres suggested by the interplay between food, life cycles, and the provisional delimitation of a space that is both familiar and unfamiliar. Any element that may evoke the taste, smell, color, texture, or sounds of the lemon contributes to revealing the subtle perceptual and conceptual transformations that the same (living) everyday object undergoes as latitude and temperature change.

The project explores the use of different spaces that can open themselves to diverse audiences and modes of engagement, moving toward a conception of the artistic gesture as a practice capable of intensifying the rhythms and modalities of everyday actions. By referring to the evolving nature of ritual, the project reflects on the constant transformations of reality without becoming trapped in the prevailing, convenient, and sterile dichotomies between progress and conservatism, between usefulness and harm, between what is permitted and what is deemed unacceptable. In this sense, the work seeks to rethink the sacredness and presumed inviolability of the boundaries traced by ritual practice, instead operating within the opening created by the perpetual oscillation between the deconstruction and the reshaping of reality.

The third meeting took place in the Swiss town of Lucerne in the early days of June 2014, in the presence of only a few people. A brief ritual for days without calm, with winds as relentless as the eyes of memory—another memory, and still not enough. Of solitary walks and thoughts like mountains.

Lucerne è una pittoresca città svizzera situata sulle rive del Lago dei Quattro Cantoni e circondata dalle Alpi. È famosa per il suo centro storico ben conservato, con stradine acciottolate, edifici affrescati e monumenti iconici come il Kapellbrücke (Ponte della Cappella), un ponte coperto in legno risalente al XIV secolo. Lucerna unisce eleganza e tranquillità, offrendo panorami suggestivi tra acqua e montagne, ed è spesso considerata una delle città più affascinanti della Svizzera.

I had held your hand
on the pew in the Church of the Servi,
I could feel that you were crying,
I didn’t know how to mend
the fallen flower of your breath
with all those roots in the wind.

Don’t leave me in the traffic,
in the deaf darkness of a moment
when you no longer turn back
and fall among the branches
like a sunset struck
in the chest by a gunshot.
Don’t leave me beneath the porticoes
that have no arms,
don’t make me believe that the square
is more beautiful than your eyes,
that the steps are your knees.

Giuseppe Borgia/ Thamara Emanuele/ Tothi Folisi.
8 Giugno 2014