As I sat down to write this essay, I realized that it would be impossible for it to take the form of a traditional catalogue text. Nothing about this year and all of the challenges that have accompanied it has been customary or even digestible. Rather, the word that everyone has desperately invoked while attempting to verbally articulate this trying moment—“unprecedented”— seems to be the only appropriate descriptor. I decided that I would have to write about Homemade from a more personal perspective because, in an era that is making history, in ways that do not easily align with any former contexts, crises, or events, our firsthand experiences are all we have. Uniting individual accounts—like the eight artistic responses that have resulted from this project—can ultimately create a lasting and authentic record for generations to come.
In mid-March, I left London—where I had been completing my Master’s degree—and returned to my home in New York just days before the announcement of a U.K. lockdown. I felt every emotion possible, but especially fear, confusion, and loneliness. As I attempted to settle into new and unfamiliar rhythms of life, I began to understand exactly what British author Olivia Laing meant when she wrote, “There is a particular flavor to the loneliness that comes from living in a city, surrounded by millions of people(1).” How much more particular that flavor had become with the addition of a truly unexpected ingredient: the Coronavirus pandemic. Even as I clapped and cheered for frontline and healthcare workers along with my entire neighborhood every evening at 7, I had never felt more alone. It was in this context that I received a phone call from Vittorio Calabrese inviting me to participate in the Homemade project. I had been offered a lifeline.
The greatest gift as a curator is having the opportunity to work closely with artists and getting to know them and their practices. This familiarity, in turn, allows for a more profound understanding of their work. For Homemade, this process was, of course, entirely reliant on digitally mediated encounters, over Zoom, iPhones, computer screens, and more. Technology is often perceived as a barrier to real connection, and I must admit that before this experience, I, too, saw my devices in this light. Yet, watching our Homemade community form over the course of the project’s duration and being a part of facilitating its development completely changed my perception of the value of these tools.
At our very first virtual aperitivo, the weight of our reality manifested itself in our heavy moods. We were nervous meeting new people over a digital platform and our interactions were colored by our skepticism. However, I was pleasantly surprised, and perhaps even a bit shocked, by how quickly our small group became a family. Two months later, we shared a final brindisi, and everything, from our states of mind to the ways in which we engaged with each other, had entirely transformed.
While the frequency of our meetings, coupled with our shared experience in this endlessly challenging time, certainly contributed to the formation of our Homemade community, our care for one another was the essential element that tenderly carried this collective and mutual growth to fruition. Although care is one of the most disregarded yet vital aspects of our everyday life—not only on a personal level, but also on a familial, societal, and global one—it always becomes crucial in times of emergency.
Our current moment of unprecedented global precarity, for example, has demonstrated just how indispensable care, care workers, and communal care networks are to both our individual and collective survival. In returning to the roots of this short yet potent word, I discovered that there is an etymological explanation for why care and crisis are inextricably linked.
Deriving from the Old English caru or cearu, meaning “sorrow” and “grief” as well as “concern or anxiety caused by the weight of many burdens,” the origins of “care” indicate that it is defined by the presence of calamity (2). As our entire team embarked on the Homemade journey together during this time of complete and utter upheaval, the only thing that did make sense was to lead with our hearts and this precious word. The intimacy that formed between us over a two-month period characterized our interactions, but also revealed itself in the project’s culminating artworks. Each weekly Zoom appointment served as a type of studio visit, in which the entire team, including Magazzino’s visionary Co-founders, Nancy Olnick and Giorgio Spanu, gathered to hear the artists share their creative and personal frustrations, challenges, and developments. The feedback and emotional validation they received, along with their collective vulnerability and honesty with one another, influenced and inspired their artistic decisions.
While each artist’s product varies significantly, there are numerous connections and intersections between their approaches and explored subject matters, amplifying both the individual and collective messages of the works. These echoes have developed not only due to a shared experience of being Italian artists living and working in New York and, particularly, throughout the pandemic, but also because of our rare and valuable prioritization of making time for one another and of being with each other, even if only virtually. Common themes emerged, such as considerations of the relationship between humans and nature, meditations on the loss and yearning for physical contact and touch, and desires to archive and record quarantine memories and environments. Additionally, many of the artists embraced time-intensive processes and experimentations with previously unexplored mediums. Together, these works manifest the message of Luisa Rabbia’s Chorus by demonstrating that a group of distinct voices truly can create harmonious song through unity (3).
In meditating on the project and its significance, I find it very interesting that collage either literally or more metaphorically appears in many of the Homemade artworks. Indeed, together, the artists have formed their very own collage: a powerful patchwork comprised of eight distinct stories that collectively paint a collaborative portrait of this exceptional moment in our contemporary history. In a way, their union at Magazzino Italian Art, after months of isolation in the artists’ homes or studios, feels like an act of resilience in and of itself. While the city that never sleeps was forced to take its most unnatural step and pause along with the rest of the world, art resisted and continued to be made.
The works that the Homemade artists were able to create in these months are not only impressive, but also deeply inspiring and moving, resonating poignantly with all who have lived through this ordeal. They have given me joy and hope—both throughout the process of their development and in their final form—which I never expected to encounter under such fraught circumstances. Furthermore, their dialogue within the gallery space tangibly evokes Helen Keller’s famous words, “Alone, we can do so little; together, we can do so much,” and serves as a compelling testament to the healing power of art—always, but especially in times of crisis (4).
Endnotes
Olivia Laing, The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone (New York: Picador, 2017),1.
Online Etymology Dictionary, “Care,” Online Etymology Dictionary, accessed August 5, 2020, https://www.etymonline.com/word/care.
See page 91.
Joseph P. Lash,“On the Vaudeville Circuit,” in Helen and Teacher: The Story of Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan Macy (New York: Delacorte Press, 1980), 489.