Afterglow

2022 – London

From the Oxford Dictionary: afterglow n 1 a light or radiance remaining after the source has disappeared. 2 a pleasant feeling remaining after a pleasurable experience.

Marinella Senatore follows up Make it Shine – her first solo exhibition with Mazzoleni, shown at the Turin gallery between November 2021 and January 2022 – with Afterglow, an exhibition that not only presents a new body of sculptures and drawings at the London gallery, but also activates the city across different outdoor light installations and performances.

The multi-site nature of Afterglow exemplifies Senatore’s multidisciplinary and participatory practice, which is characterised by a strong collective dimension. Taking her inspiration from Southern Italy’s luminarie, the elaborate light structures that traditionally adorn cities and recreate cathedrals, piazzas, and other architectural elements for outdoor public celebrations and religious festivities, the artist will insert her own site-specific light sculptures on the facades and forecourts of significant buildings across London. Senatore’s ‘luminarie’ “are like monuments to and for people, to the ‘here and now’, to live actions and experiences.”

Besides its participatory aspect, the theme of light is another crucial aspect to Afterglow. The light has been a fundamental element in Senatore’s practice since her training at the National Film School in Rome, where she studied direction of photography and camera. The light, both electric and optic, material and metaphorical, proves to be a tool for narration and poetic creation, as well as for resistance and cohesion. As the artist explains, “the light sculptures are generators of energy that – under the form of light beams – is propagated across a space, that changes it and modifies its structures as well as the individuals in it.”