The idea of Pre-Choice was born around the middle of 2017 when, opening the doors of my wardrobe at my parents' house, I come across that suitcase stored there for years: the suitcase of my "future" wedding kit.
We people of southern Italy have always had this tradition at heart and, although today most of the ancient customs have disappeared, that of the "dowry" continues to persist even in the most emancipated families.
I then take the suitcase and open it carefully finding, among other things, sheets, towels, handkerchiefs, all in the highest quality fabrics, full of lace and embroidery, some of which were made by my grandmother.
A dive into the past, when grandmother taught me to hold needle and thread between my fingers and embroider, on that cotton square, a five-petal flower ... a disaster.
I still wanted to learn (because it is inconvenient for a future woman not to know how to sew!) And when she was gone, I went downstairs to the seamstress to steal the ancient art of sewing and embroidery with my eyes.
My parents had enriched the outfit year after year in view of a day that I wished would never come.
I reflect, and I wonder why all that linen, and not only, had to die closed in a closet, why not make her tell one of the many stories, mine, stories of women, of cultures, of roots, and also stories of conditioning, of obligations, imprisonment, chains.
Waiting to understand who we really are; dichotomy between what we are and what others would like us to be; claiming one's freedom of choice and self-determination.
Hence the title Pre-Choice, with its various meanings of the one who has been "preferred", "predestined", "elected", of the one who voluntarily "chosen" to personally suffer or react.
You can't run anywhere, except inside yourself: that's where you decide.
Pre-Scelta is performance and installation, and all my life inside. In the performance, the ticking of a clock marks the time and the act of the "pre-choice" of setting a double bed, at the same time theater of dedication, devotion, imprisonment, self-annulment, violation, rebellion, catharsis and liberation.
The installation anticipates the salient moments of the action through shots and self-portraits printed on semi-transparent fabric and sewn on the pillowcases and sheets of my parents' double kit, sheets in which I was conceived.
Here the circle has closed, and I realize that my life and Pre-Choice have become a unique thing.
