Why Can't We Live Together?

5 Jul-7 Jul 2024

PV 5 Jul 2024, 6-10.30pm

Overview

Instagram: wcwlt_

5 – 7 July 2024
Public Opening: 5 July, 6-10:30 pm
71-75 Powerscroft road, E5 0PT, London

We are pleased to present Why Can’t We Live Together?, a project by Matteo Bozzi and Claudio La Mattina on view in London from 5th to 7th of July 2024. Through film, performance, sculpture and photograph, this project explores human relational dynamics and the interaction between bodies and objects in space. This is the duo’s first solo exhibition and is organised and curated by Juliette Miller and Athina Sanvido.

The project begins in 2022, in Naples, Italy. Described by Walter Benjamin and Asja Lacis as a “porous” city in 1925, it is the backdrop for the duo’s reflection on human relations and interactions. Naples is a crossroad city, full of emulation, trickery, and creativity, where nothing must be expected, and everything is possible. Inspired by the mixing of inside and outside spaces; of the public and private realm, happening in this city, the duo considered our relationship to our communities, our peers and ourselves.

In Naples, Matteo & Claudio spent time at Ex-Asilo Filangieri (L’Asilo) - A self-governed space part of the Network of the Neapolitan Commons, is occupied by citizens who have taken over publicly owned abandoned urban sites with the mission of creating space for social, artistic, and political experimentation- where over the span of two months, they hosted a participatory artistic and social laboratory. Inspired by the Neapolitan Smorfia - A traditional Neapolitan book that interprets dreams and converts them into lucky numbers - and with the help of locals and the broader Asilo community, they crafted sixteen cardboard sculptures. These amorphous sculptures, designed to be inhabited or worn by human bodies, form a visual lexicon that invites people to reconsider their relationship to space and to each other.

In November 2023, Matteo & Claudio returned to L’Asilo to expand their project into a short film, collaborating with director Simone Bozzelli and choreographer Max Cookward. Inspired by the human and convivial experiences of their residency at L’Asilo, they crafted a visual narrative that conjures an imaginary world woven from symbols and dreams. Visual metaphors shape an iconographic space, where the sculptures invent new ways to communicate and relate to oneanother. Byquestioningwhylivingtogetherseemsimpossible,MatteoandClaudiosuggesthowdifferentitcould be. The essence of conviviality is perpetually explored through its contradictory shades: the intimacy of familial bonds, the violence of demonstrated virility, or the guarded secrets of friendship are all displayed, yet the question remains: Why Can’t We Live Together?

Much like Naples exists in the in-between crevices of public and private, Why Can’t We Live Together? exists at the crossroads of reality and imagined, decorative and functional, physical and theoretical; film, sculpture, photograph and performance. By creating a space of resistance that offers possibilities for new relationships and sincere, unspoken conversations, Matteo & Claudio embrace the movements of participatory creation and behaviour, exploring a range of possible living forms.

Artists