Alberta Pane Gallery is pleased to present in its Parisian space, on January 22nd and 23rd, 2021, the new performance Si tu m’aimes, protège-moi by Romina De Novellis.

 

Romina De Novellis is a performer, visual artist, and researcher. She studies the body from an anthropological perspective and through the lens of the Mediterranean cultures. The artist uses ecofeminist theories(1) as a parameter to analyze and denounce the oppressive realities of our societies and the dichotomies: nature/humanity, femininity/masculinity, north/south, scientic/intuitive, power/bodies, establishment/cultures. Her intention is to highlight the reappropriation of the feminine features for both women and men, with the aim of questioning the dominant models.

 

This new performance is inspired by the peasant cultures of Southern Italy, in which women covered the ears of hens before practicing any violent gesture that could have shocked them and caused their infertility. Carefully, the woman used to take the hen on her knees and to protected her ears from the noise.

 

Today, in intensively farmed slaughterhouses, millions of chickens are exposed to deafening methods to make them lose consciousness and become insensitive to pain. Stunning with electric water baths is the most common way in the European Union for the slaughter of chickens: the birds are placed in transport containers and then hung up by both legs at the hock, which takes them to an electri ed water bath.

 

Romina De Novellis takes a critical look at any form of ritual. Popular celebrations, lightings (2), and traditions linked to religious ceremonies o en place the role of women in a secondary and submissive position. This explains why the work of this artist addresses the bodies, the gestures of care and the intimate moments of taking care of the other. Is during these moments of intimacy, silence, and care, that the feminine pole can arise showing another way of relating to nature, to the animal, and to the other. « Women make the children and they make dead, but they also make the animals ». (3) They « make » to the extent that they take care of the family and their loved ones and they give another vision to the social uses of the body.

 

In her new performance, Romina De Novellis completely transforms the gallery space by creating an installation with a strong emotional impact, in which she will replicate the gestures of animal protection. In this performance Romina De Novellis proposes a reection where eco-feminism becomes the key to read care, as a vision for life and as respect for the body of humans and animals both in life and in death. It is an invitation to think about ecofeminism as a key to get out of our current productivist and consumerist logic.