I have so enjoyed working on the concertina book “A Circular Journey” in my London studio for the “Borse Nere” project, after being invited to participate by Federica Paretti of Associazione Il Palmerino and Calliope Arts. It is a collaborative art project and event involving other artists who have been working separately on their similar but unique books. We shall meet and see each other’s works for the first time when they are presented to the public in an installation at Murate Art District (MAD) in Florence on 22 September.
The work is linked to the current summer exhibition at Il Palmerino in Florence, part of the “Estate Fiorentino”: “Altri Giardini”, works by Italian artist Elena Salvini Pierallini (1934-2024) known as ESP.
Having been given free rein to express myself in whatever way I wished, I ranged over so many aspects of my work and life. You can see some of the work in progress here as it came together in the studio, where I worked with scissors and glue putting together handwritten and printed texts in Greek, Italian and English and images that included original paintings, photos and xerox copies, threading together thoughts, memories and dreams as I shaped my stories. ESP created community events in Florence in which artists could produce and share works in conversation with her ‘Borse Nere’, or ‘Black Bags’. She would create concertina books filling only half of each book with her own artwork. She tucked each of her art books in large black bags symbolising the subconscious, and gifted them to other artists, with an invitation to fill both bag and book however they wished. The artists would then meet in public spaces and institutions for performances where they would bring out their books and discuss the works together in front of an audience. ESP’s daughters have gifted seven incomplete art books from their mother’s archive to me and six other contemporary artists to continue the art conversation their mother began decades ago. A public presentation by participating artists is scheduled for September 22 2026 from 5:30 to 7pm at MAD – Murate Art District, a former convent turned women’s prison, which became a contemporary art centre in 2011, hosting major exhibitions. Alongside my own work there will be the work of artists Elena Santoni, Ylenia Pigozzo, Veronika Bromberg, Irena M Kongsuwan, Sophie Robinson and Victor Rees who will share their works with the public and artists from previous iterations of the “borse nere” performances.
