Freelance work

Freelance work, 15 color prints, 51×35 cm; video DVD-PAL, 2’57”, 2010

Freelance work is an installation made up of a video (Bandolo – Spool) and a series of photographs (Piccola Impresa – Little Enterprise), about the issue of work.

Little Enterprise. Looking for a personal answer to the question ‘What does working mean?’ I engaged myself in a series of actions relating to the idea of working. In the photographs I staged minimal actions interacting with space, attempting to modify the setting in which I found myself in. The actions are set in the public space, used as both background and a raw material. All the actions were performed in Prato, a town that has built its own identity upon textile factories. However, in the last 15 years this image has been challenged by the textile and economic crisis, facing with the globalization of the market. For the same reasons in the video I play with a peculiar object of the textile industry, a spool.

Bandolo (Spool). The video Bandolo (Spool) documents the game I played with a peculiar object of the textile industry, a spool, by turning its proper vertical axis of rotation into an horizontal one. In this way the spool is used as a potential wheel of fortune, following the mistery of the economy: the hope for dreamed gains and the fear for cruel losses are bound to its turning.

This work won the Special award 2010 and it has been displayed in the International Departures 11 exhibition , Modena, 2011, acquired in the Fondazione Fotografia permanent collection.

Working on a conceptual footing, Valentina Lapolla’s work is developed in an ongoing dialogue with reality, highlighting the problems and the contradictions which – from a local to a national/global level – concern the community at large. Her actions and performances are often set in the urban space, in direct relationship with city life. In the installation Lavoro Autonomo, made up of a video and a series of photographs, the artist comes to terms with the work and its value, marked today by a profound sense of precariousness. The action staged by the artist are minimal gestures interacting with space, uncertain attempts to modify the setting in which she find herself. Bereft of any immediate goal, or of the usual context of social norms, Lapolla’s interventions attempt to breathe new life into the work looked upon as a transformation of reality, playing on the limit within which it is possible to invent new spaces of freedom.

Excerpt from the catalogue of the exhibition International Departures 2011, Modena