‘Trinity Site’ is a site-specific exhibition by Italian artist Lucas Memmola at the Milan branch of the aA29 Project Room gallery. Curated by Fabio Avella and Lara Gaeta, the show proposes a reflection on the physical and psychological condition of the human being, located in an underground context that on the one hand protects and shelters, on the other inevitably isolates and disorients. It is a tripartite site where each space corresponds to a poetic extract of the experience of a human being suspended between life, survival and transformation. The exhibition runs until June 9, 2022.
Lucas Memmola: Trinity Site / aA29 Project Room Milano. Milan (Italy), March 31, 2022.
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About the Exhibition (translated from Italian):
Milan March 17, 2022. With the exhibition TRINITY SITE by Lucas Memmola (Bari, 1994), curated by Fabio Avella and Lara Gaeta, from April 1 to June 9, the Milan branch of the aA29 Project Room gallery proposes a reflection on the physical and psychological condition of the human being, located in an underground context that on the one hand protects and shelters, on the other inevitably isolates and disorients.
TRINITY SITE is not only the title of the exhibition, but a toponym that identifies itself with the gallery space itself, which for the occasion changes appearance, presenting itself as an underground refuge. It is literally a tripartite site where each space corresponds to a poetic extract of the experience of a human being suspended between life, survival and transformation.
When crossing the threshold, the visitor has the feeling of being in an epochal moment of passage, which brings together past and future. In TRINITY SITE you experience a feeling of lack, loneliness and adaptation, it is a place where the ways of life and habits of human beings are questioned.
With this site-specific work the artist creates a vertical parallelism, in which the physical environment represents the possible catastrophic future of civilization that is closely connected to an existential condition of the human soul.
The artist identifies in the spiritual transformation the starting point to implement a change on the physical plane, going through an inevitable moment of transition.
TRINITY SITE is a concrete metanarrative that gravitates around the traces of a man who, like a chrysalis, slowly evolves, highlighting the will of the human species to always tend towards life.
About the Artist:
Lucas Memmola was born in Bari in 1994 and he attended the Brera Academy of Fine Arts in Milan. Particularly interested in biological and organic processes, his approach to art is similar to that of an alchemist: he investigates how the elements of nature (earth, flesh, gold, fire…) can dialogue with each other, generating visual metaphors that mirror certain conditions of the human soul.
The main objective of Memmola’s artistic research is therefore to describe processes within humankind and the reality that surrounds him through different poetic tools. Drawing also on religious themes or those belonging to the dimension of sacred and mythology, the artist analyses how they influence the contemporary collective imagination.
From 2016 to 2019 he has been assistant of the artist Gian Maria Tosatti. Among the group shows in which he took part there are: Vuoto Apparente, Cinema Beltrade (Milan, 2021); Linea di Contorno, VOCABOLUM (ultrasegno vol.1), Palazzo Fruscione (Salerno, 2021); Exit Strategy, Cinema Arcobaleno (Naples, 2021); exhibition on the occasion of the Eleventh Edition of the Combat Prize (was selected among the finalists), SAC – Spazio Arte Contemporanea (Livorno, 2020) and The Final Show, The Format – Contemporary Culture Gallery (Milan, 2015).
His works have been also published in art magazines and journals of national relevance. Some of his works have been presented in the catalogue Linea di Contorno, Vocabulum (ultrasegno vol.1), 2021, ed. Gutenberg.
About aA29 Project Room
aA29 Project Room takes its name from the small asteroid 2002 AA29 co-orbiting with the Earth that is thought to have formed from the collision between Earth and Theia, a planet that, according to the giant impact theory, would have collided with the Earth, later giving rise to the Moon. Also aA29 was born from the clash-meeting with different entities of the contemporary art world from which it inspired, while following its own orbit, and observing the reality from new and different viewpoints.
aA29 Project Room, founded by Gerardo Giurin and Antonio Cecora, is organised in two galleries in Milan and Caserta, directed by Lara Gaeta: multifunctional spaces, created to promote different forms of experimentation through exhibitions, site-specific projects and residencies. The Project Room addresses socio-political issues, extending its aim to a broader field of research, exploring different possibilities for dialogue and interaction with the other, with the intention of deconstructing some of the foundations of the dominant thought.
aA29 Project Room supports research which is sensitive to ecological and environmental issues, and generates new possibilities of encounter and connection between living beings.
The artists with whom it collaborates, investigate the liminal and dichotomous conditions between human beings and the animal world, between the natural and unnatural, the sacred and the profane, the inhabited and the uninhabited, developing projects in which the public contributes, through participatory actions, towards the affirmation of a collective consciousness that imagines alternative scenarios for the future.
