Collettivo Ingwer
Camilla Parini
“Few people know how many women there are in me”, Anaïs Nin.
The terms STILL and LEBEN when combined into one word in German mean ‘still life’. By separating the two words, one can obtain multiple meanings: still life; silent living; quiet. Different reading possibilities that somehow reveal a blurred border between stillness, death and life. Fernando Pessoa wrote “What do I die when I am?”.
This work stems from the need to reflect on the figure of the woman without wanting to inquire into her social and cultural position, rather portraying her in the intimacy of her relationship with herself. It is an ever-changing portrait of a woman faded by time, a figure with no boundaries that is changing its forms and is told through the irony and melancholy of a solitude that sometimes or often keeps us company.
It suggests a climate, sometimes a condition or a state of preservation. It investigates those memories abandoned and consumed among rooms without walls, in the spaces of a metaphorical dwelling, in a place where one can still dialogue with one’s absences. It is a creation of real but not necessarily realistic images, which try to penetrate layer after layer under the surface of a life.
Production: Ingwer Collective; by and with: Camilla Parini; sound design: Loris Ciresa; light design: Pierfranco Sofia; costumes: Laura Pennsi; photographs: Martina Tritten.
Camilla Parini – 1984, Switzerland. In 2004 she met the Teatro delle Radici (directed by Cristina Castrillo, Swiss Theatre Prize 2014) with which she began a training and work path, taking part in the shows D_verso D_(2006), Shakespeariana (2008), Track (2009), Dove lo sguardo scorre (2011), Neve (2012), Amori (2013), Petali (2015) performing in various theatres, festivals and shows in Switzerland and abroad (Argenitna, Chile, Cuba, Denmark, Ecuador, Italy and Peru). In 2008 she graduated as a social worker at the University of Applied Sciences of Southern Switzerland SUSPI-DSAS. In 2012 she graduated in Milan at the Scuola di Teatro Paolo Grassi, in the professional course of dance theatre, presenting performances in festivals such as Torino Danza, Biennale Danza Venezia and Bolzano Danza. For some years now she has been collaborating with various professional realities in the Italian part of Switzerland, both in the field of theatre/performance and cinema. She also works with other dance, theatre and performance companies such as Les Ballets C de la B, Wupperrtal Tanztheater, Trisha Brown Dance Company, Peeping Tom, Nicole Seiler, Geraldine Pilgrim, Iris Erez, Violeta Luna. In 2013 she laid the first foundations for the creation of the artistic group Collective Ingwer with which she produced her first show STILL LEBEN in 2014. Currently Collettivo Ingwer, in collaboration with Azimut, is working on its new production “Princesses karaoke or something like that…” (semifinalist at PREMIO Schweiz, an encouragement prize for the performing arts) which will debut in April 2016 in co-production with Teatro Sociale Bellinzona, created and performed by Camilla Parini and Anahì Traversi.
Collettivo Ingwer/Camilla Parini e Chiara Caterina
Photos of women telling their stories, each through two self-portraits: the first portrays the realistic image the woman has of herself, the second portrays the image of what she is, but remains hidden.
The photographed body is not theirs, but that of the performer Camilla Parini, who makes herself totally available to them, like material to be moulded to recreate the image they have of themselves.
Each woman is responsible for undressing, untrimming and dressing this “body material” as she sees fit. This is done, as far as possible, through the use of clothing, make-up and objects owned by the woman herself. She then chooses the place where the body is to be posed and constructs the frame in which it is to be portrayed. A professional photographer is at her disposal to take the photos of the two completed self-portraits.
In Milan, thanks to the support of the Consiglio di Zona 9 and the INTERKULT exhibition coordinated by ZONA K, the project has involved Milanese women from all over the world: China, Morocco, Ukraine, Serbia, Syria, Tunisia and the Philippines. Together they tell us fragments of the new female universe of our city.
INTERKULT action
Free admission
Photographic project Collettivo Ingwer; in collaboration with Fondazione Aurelio Petroni; idea and body Camilla Parini; photographic support and video shooting Chiara Caterina
Collettivo Ingwer is a multidisciplinary artistic workshop founded in 2013 by Camilla Parini and composed of all the people who have been, are and will be involved in the realisation of the various projects.