In conversation with Dalia Maini, the artist Rebecca Moccia assesses her exhibition The Loners, at Cripta747 in Turin and explores the themes illuminated by her ongoing research on the effect (and affects) of work relations and individualism on citizens and communities.
Can you introduce your ongoing research, and what brought you to the concept behind the exhibition The Loners?
RM: With the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic I increasingly experienced an unexpected sense of loneliness. Being a human in this destructive global political-economic system, and also being a part of the artistic sector, I felt the need and, at the same time, the difficulty of creating real communities, of responding collectively to serious and urgent problems at a large or small scale. This feeling was accompanied by a sense of helplessness and powerlessness.
It was the year 2020, or perhaps 2021, in the midst of one of the lockdowns, I heard on the radio about a ministry related to loneliness for the first time. It was a speech by the Minister of Loneliness, Baroness Barran, addressing British citizens confined at home, and announcing a significant investment in the government fund dedicated to reducing loneliness.
I immediately felt that this news touched on the exposed nerve of a contradiction I wanted to investigate, even though I didn't yet fully understand its origin and meaning. In particular, I wondered about the form and origins of a feeling like loneliness that seems pervasive, and, simultaneoulsy, inherently hidden which was suddenly brought to global attention due to the pandemic. It is a feeling that I had seen discussed using interpretations and words that suddenly no longer seemed convincing to me.
Therefore, I began the Ministry of Loneliness project, a three-year investigation across Italy, England, the United States, and Japan; an exploration both at an artistic, and – in line with my practice – a physical level. It is a journey that started by exploring the crucial influence of spaces, the material world, and the various networks of relationships between bodies and political-economic contexts, as to how loneliness emerges and is experienced.
After working, for instance, on the bureaucratic and parliamentary structures that contribute to the shaping of lonely subjectivities (the corpus of works exhibited in my solo show, Ministry of Loneliness [1], in the exhibition The Loners, curated by Elena Bray and Iacopo Prinetti at Cripta747, I focused on electoral architecture, on the dynamics of voting as the main relationship today between citizens and politics, marking a new step in my research.
fig. 1
In the exhibition at Cripta747 you articulate the relationships between labor, democracy, and loneliness? How do you intertwine those?
Starting in 2021, I began to work on a personal archive of voting booth images from different countries, both by trying to reach the actual voting sites in the countries I visited, and through online and offline documentary research. From these images, I developed a kind of taxonomy of voting booths to highlight the lonely and constitutive approach of the liberal system of political representation, and of democracy, and to trace the material particularities and specific forms of these temporary architectures.
In the project’s core idea, the booths were divided into different typologies (e.g., "free-standing", "multiple", etc.) and these were associated with equally human types. As a result, I took several elements from this research, and these were translated into five sculptures in the Cripta747 exhibition space: the loners, and hybrids between voters' bodies and neoliberal structures.
Meanwhile, two megaphones mounted on one of the sculptures broadcast an audio work created in collaboration with the sound artist Renato Grieco. The same composition has been released, in the context of the exhibition, as a limited edition record, Rebecca Moccia&Renato Grieco Ministry of Loneliness Theme, published by Paint it Black. The sound, croaking through the speakers, further intensifies the perception of the atmosphere of liberal bureaucratic apparatuses.
With this project, I intended to reflect on the peculiar loneliness of our time; a "political loneliness" as defined by Jennifer Gaffney, who analyzed Hannah Arendt's thoughts on the matter (Gaffney, J. Political Loneliness: Modern Liberal Subjects in Hiding; Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2020). It is a kind of loneliness that is formed when the ultimate act of citizenship becomes a hidden, anonymous vote in the ballot box, or a secret disenchanted abstention, alienated from real political participation.
fig. 2
It can be argued that loneliness is a capitalist-induced state that makes citizens more obedient. Amidst the wholesale alienation of the contemporary subject, how do you think that artistic practices can restore social and political agency, beyond the symbolic realm?
As you said, the ideal citizen of neoliberal capitalism is the autonomous, self-sufficient individual. So we have been led to believe that pain – in all its various manifestations including feelings of loneliness – only concerns the individual and their ability to be resilient, to ‘make it on their own”. Suffering and the need for care have been increasingly privatized and psychologized over the years, and, as a result, anytime we have been tormented by fears and insecurities, or needed support and didn't get it, we have had to blame ourselves, our inadequacy, our insufficiency, rather than attributing responsibility to society.
I believe that this vision of loneliness as something that relates to the personal, to the individual, rather than as a political issue, is, first of all, cultural, and I believe that art practices can act on this level by creating sensory knowledge.
Through my research and work, I try to present a counter-narrative of loneliness, despite the more stigmatizing representations of this emotional state. This interpretation acknowledges the birth and material roots of these feelings and recognizes them as a product consistent with and functional to the capitalist socio-economic model and its reproduction.
My hope is that, by redirecting this collective pain to its true cause, we can turn it into a means of empowerment, a tool for struggle.
fig. 3
Do you feel you have explored loneliness enough, or will we see a new declension? What comes next for you?
I am currently working on a further manifestation of the project, which will be exhibited in the Italian Pavilion at the next Gwangju Biennale this year, in an extended, site-specific presentation of all my research on loneliness. This is thanks to an invitation from the Italian Cultural Institute in Seoul. In fact, I am leaving soon for South Korea, where I will work with students from the Seoul Institute of Arts in a workshop based on research on loneliness among Korean young adults and the collaborative production of texts and images.
I honestly feel that this research, so intimate and meaningful, could still be pursued in the course of my practice, in parallel with my other projects. However, in the future, I intend to extend my analysis to other types of neoliberal emotional distress.
fig. 4
Which components of your artistic practice make you feel loneliest? How do cultural institutions facilitate this feeling? Or, on the contrary, if they offer support, what form does that take?
I feel lonely as an art worker every time I do research, create works, ask for fees, resources, contracts or endeavor to express myself freely. And I face precariousness, lack of recognition, exploitation, and competitiveness all around. And it is sometimes difficult and overwhelming to continue with my practice under these conditions. I live and work in Italy and this happens frequently.
In this context, I don't see much support from institutions, as most of them actively promote untenable working situations. There is a lack of regulation in artistic work, and an unfair distribution of resources, funds, and opportunities.
SI have found support from my fellow art workers and my local community of loved ones, friends, and comrades. I am a member of an association of art workers, AWI, Art Workers Italia, founded to raise awareness in the sector of the need to achieve fair and decent working conditions for all, and to provide concrete support in ethical, political, legal, and contractual issues.
Since we founded AWI 4 years ago, we have learned a lot together. We have started on a real journey to know our rights and to learn how to defend them. I feel much less lonely among AWIs.
To more forms of unionizing amongst art and cultural workers then!
\\
- NOTES
[1] Curated by Chiara Nuzzi at Fondazione ICA Milano, 2023
BIO
Rebecca Moccia is an artist whose transdisciplinary practice explores the materiality of perceptual and emotional states that can emerge from specific social and spatial dynamics.
IMAGE CREDITS
Cover: Rebecca Moccia, The Loners, 2024, Installation views at Cripta747, Torino. Photo credits Sebastiano Pellion di Persano. Courtesy the Artist and Cripta747.
