While navigating belief and power in visual language, embodied by trap-like, multifaceted sculptures, la Colonna degli ossessi was taking shape both in my mind and in my studio.
The site-specific installation takes its name from the unique pillar housed in the Basilica di San Pietro in Rome. It is said that the torsioned column was preserved thanks to a popular belief that the three-meter pillar was touched by Jesus when it was part of the Temple of Solomon.It is still believed to possess the power to heal the possessed, who, in the Middle Ages, were tied to the column to be liberated from obsession.

Now, the new pillar itself seeks to be embodied, carrying forward and nurturing other forms of belief. Taking shape from my obsession with architectural decoration and motifs, I manipulated salt-dough fragments and arranged them on ceramic modules. I am captivated by the illusion created through the interplay between an organic material and a more stable one, such as ceramic. The sculpture’s fluctuating state now becomes an encounter with vulnerability and attraction, symptoms of the power of proximity.

The visual navigation of the ‘ossessi’, ‘the obsessed’, takes the form of a potential object that wants to connect the floor with the ceiling, yet it already appears to be flying.

Colonna degli ossessi
site specific installation view of Colonna degli ossessi, and When she had silver hairs, at OYO 9, Haagse Kunstkring, 2025, Den Haag;

Colonna degli ossessi, 290x20 cm, salt dough, glazed semire ceramic, steel and alluminium; 2025