The other land of Daniele Camaioni, as disturbing as it may be, is not the copy of our planet as it happens in Mikle Cahill’s film, but it refers, at least it seems so, to a “world without us”, a dehumanized world caused by transformations produced by humanity itself. Guilty of having generated, with his intervention, an irreversible ecological crisis without thinking about the threat of his own extinction.
As the title of the work may allude, many destructive acts seem to have been committed due to the indiscriminate use of the nuclear industry.
Yet, “even though we have committed very destructive acts and long-term damage, even though we have wiped out entire species, the Earth would be able to heal (…) even at Chernobyl, on those soils so badly. Contaminated, life forms have appeared that are capable of thriving“.
Despite the catastrophic and apocalyptic hypothesis of the end for our species, it is not so for the Planet which, as Weisman said, is able to regenerate itself thanks to the energy with which it is endowed.
In reality, the transformation of matter, in this case, does not take place for calamitous environmental causes, but for the manipulation of elements that we know very well because through them we feed ourselves, we live, we become ill but they heal us.
Food, which has always inspired images that express the richness of the earth, becomes an artistic element and a vehicle for new meanings.
Camaioni’s fantafood is born in the kitchen, where shaped, melted, cut, sculpted and then composed food creates innovative scenarios of great suggestion. These will be immortalized by a quick photo shoot at the moment of their maximum splendour, before any sign of freshness can disappear.
Then without distorting the image, the artist improves the photographic rendering through digital reworking, trying to complete the work with sensitivity and aesthetic taste with which to guide our narrative purpose. The edible with the sophisticated and mysterious compositions with unpredictable juxtapositions and architectures, represent new landscapes, transmitting different messages about the symbolic and spiritual value of food, and therefore about the responsibilities we have towards nature.
In Nuclearland we are in front of the dawn of a new land with a windy sky that smells like sunset and is reflected on the syrupy waters of a sweetish river, where glassy sugar doilies float in which eyeless carrot palaces rise.
At the bottom a transparent bridge supports all the lightness of a dome upside down, crystallized in the movement of falling from its star.
The warm colours evoke a certain visual appetite so much so as to go further and savour a metaphysical dimension like a daydream, hypnotized by the refined atmosphere that the work manages to spread.
So as you wander around the sweet, angular weaves similar to delicate Murano glass, you can imagine the heady scent of caramel that excites the throat and thought, almost as if to satisfy the innate instinct to search for sweet, and at the same time dampen the bitter and sour flavors as they are sometimes those of life.
Nikla Cingolani
Look at the project The human revolution where the work Nuclearland is present
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