Second edition of the scholarship named after Maria Cristina Bergesio

With great satisfaction we present the results of the project developed by Daniela Saadi, Argentine artist winner of the scholarship established by LAO in memory of Maria Cristina Bergesio. This scholarship provided Daniela with the opportunity to participate free of charge in one year-long jewelry course during which she committed herself to carrying out the project presented in her application and for which she was selected.

Daniela’s project benefited from invaluable support throughout the year: Maria Laura La Mantia provided expert and priceless mentorship for the conceptual part of the research. Thanks to Maria Laura’s guidance, Daniela was able to outline the project objectives clearly and accurately, developing a solid theoretical foundation for her work.

On the other hand, Giò Carbone provided technical assistance and mentoring during all stages of the laboratory’s implementation. Giò’s practical support was fundamental in guiding Daniela to translate her ideas into concrete and achievable projects: Daniela has achieved considerable technical progress, has acquired confidence and precision together with awareness and knowledge of the processes, materials and techniques of jewelry-making that she has been able to apply to her contemporary objects.  

The results of the project were presented to the public on the occasion of the end-of-year exhibition and are now published online on the school’s social media pages

No doubt Maria Cristina Bergesio would have loved and appreciated Daniela’s project and her approach to contemporary research. This scholarship allows us to keep MCB’s memory alive, offering young talents like Daniela the opportunity to pursue their dreams and leave their mark in the field of jewellery research.

Congratulations to Daniela Saadi for the results obtained and for having carried out the project with passion and commitment throughout the school year, and special thanks to Maria Laura La Mantia and Giò Carbone for their precious support.

The Language of Things.

Artistic ornament as a visual notebook.

Daniela Saadi, the intimate signs of migratory travel.

Maria Laura La Mantia

For some, the concept of contemporaneity proclaims that the observer dictates the semantics of a work.

However, the artistic project developed by Daniela Saadi adopts a position that I would define as modernist, where the collected objects, their manipulation, and the development of the idea are primarily the physical representation of her thoughts and experiences.

«Thought is extension, desire, plurality, body, poison, aura, skin, sense, symbiosis, lightness, weight, exploration» (1).

Each of her jewels has a title, as it is the language of things that guides her research. It is a narration, an overlapping of signs, sounds traced as writing, milestones from her migratory journey, in which the passage through places, collected objects, and listened dialogues are marked by words like «territory,» «loss of roots,» and «search for belonging.»

«I believe that drawing inspiration from the artists who first paved the way is inevitable, and recognizing their influence is fundamental» (2).

Daniela Saadi refers to artists like Joseph Beuys, an important figure known for the use of autobiographical elements, transforming life experiences into artworks. Other sources of inspiration have been the work of Fernanda Gomes for the language of things and Martha Demisache for the artistic use of asemic writing, about which she states, «For me, the liberation of the sign happens within culture and history, not at their margins. In this sense, my work is not at all in line with the times. Graphically speaking, every time I start writing, I develop a formal idea that can be transformed into the idea of time.»

In her artistic project, Daniela Saadi places the jewelry medium within other forms of art, such as painting, signs, and installations; everything is interconnected as an expression of her lived story. In the jewels created for her project, we must mention the influence of Lisa Walker’s ideas and Annamaria Zanella’s work with materials as mentors.

Thus, the theme of the language of things is the narrative of a journey that connects nations, continents, and cultures, forming another facet of this project whose jewels are a delicate declination. The brooch «Togliersi la pelle» (Removing the skin) is a trace of an unknown horizon, accompanying a necklace that defines inflamed and delicate boundaries, a bracelet that is in raw contiguity with reality, while the brooch «Escuchar desde afuera» (Listening from the outside) recalls shamanic protection talismans, where in this case, the listened and written words becomes memories of ancestral gestures.

One could mention the definition of «migratory aesthetics,» understanding it as a contamination of various media, in an interdisciplinary perspective. The transversality of her elaboration is present in each realized jewel, and the semantic connection gradually leads to the visual map of a journey that is both aesthetic and internal, where territory, language, objects, and emotions bear witness to this fascinating transformation.

(1) Teresa Macrì. «Pensiero discordante,» Postmediabooks, pg. 5.

(2) Hans Ulrich Obrist, «A cosa serve l’arte,» Marsilio, 2009, pg. 19.

Bibliographic references

Giorgio Bacci, «Confini – Viaggi nell’arte contemporanea,» Postmedia Books.

Hans Ulrich Obrist (with Luigi Ricuperati), «A che cosa serve l’arte,» Marsilio Cartabianca.

Teresa Macrì, «Pensiero discordante,» Postmediadata.

My project speaks by Daniela Saadi

It speaks of territory, of the loss of roots, of memory, of the search for belonging. About inhabiting a new territory, treading on a different terrain. Of the effects of the landscape and the link between it, the body and memory. To find oneself visually and corporeally in another land.

 It speaks of saying words in another language, signifying them, giving meaning to language. Of listening as an artistic practice, searching for the visual image of words when there is no meaning to associate them with.

It speaks of the memory of the matter, of the social trace present in objects, of the presence of time and space imprinted on things.

And of that which is enunciated through territory, language and matter within my migratory experience, in the complex action of exercising citizenship in a diverse territory with its own social structure.

Territory as enunciation

Language as enunciation

The matter (objects/things) as enunciation

My project, The Language of Things, and the transversalities that derive from them, is based on these three axes.

This project is an archive of my migratory process; of deterritorialisation and reterritorialisation as living concepts in constant transformation, not only from a territorial-social dimension but also as an internal experience.

From a sensitive aesthetic, I register this process through my artistic practice, focusing on the notions of territory and language and on the matter as memory and enunciating device of both territory and language.

The series of pieces created within the context of the Maria Cristina Bergessio Grant for this project are articulated with a visual and/or sound work and with found objects, giving shape to an archive, a framework or «landscape» of the creative process, from a multiplicity of languages.

The operations of recognition and link with the environment carried out in the first instance have to do with listening, exploration and walking as artistic practices; as tools for mapping, exploring, recognising and inhabiting the territory. Also with the action of gathering elements/objects and written notes found on these walks. Objects that act as instruments of recognition of the territory from the memory present in its materiality. To understand how in the act of listening, walking, touring, in the orality of everyday life and in looking one can recognise the territorial framework and articulate relationships with the landscape, with the land, with culture and the social fibre.