WORK DESCRIPTION
Title: KEEP YOUR HEAD DOWN
ArTransit – boat on Lago Maggiore
Date: April 19, 2015
Materials: pink non-toxic non-polluting fine gravel of the type used in aquariums. Packaged in small individual bags for participants.
The all-day art/performance program of ArTransit on Lago Maggiore made a stop at Isola Borromeo, where all the participants did their part to contaminate the island in a non-polluting and very slightly invasive way. Pink Subversion. Curated by Barbara Faessler and Domenico Lucchini.
Keep Your Head Down
St. Charles Borromeo was admired in Milan because he stayed in the city during a period of plague and famine, even using his own funds to feed the hungry. But he also persecuted witchcraft and heresy as part of the counter-reform, mostly in Switzerland, using torture and even burning alive many people suspected of sorcery, or so some people say. The victims were hung upside down, with their heads down. Tourists visiting Isola Borromeo seldom look down at the ground where they are walking. Participants in Art Transit will have small quantities of pink gravel to drop along the paths of the island, leaving a trail that will not fade for weeks, months, perhaps even years. It harms no one but adds an anomalous, extraneous color to the island. Participants are encouraged to take pictures of the pink trail, and to keep their heads down, looking at the ground and not at the Borromeo mansion and the souvenir stands.
