THE 2022 PRIZE, ninth year, " DISABILITY AND TRANSFORMATION for AN INCLUSIVE SOCIETY" > Submitted works > MERLINI Nicole, OBSERVED, Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera, Milano

OBSERVED

This work is called "Ossèrvàti", It is inspired by the unconscious actions of observing and being observed of which we become protagonists every day. I realized, thanks to long walks in the company of the volunteer group to which I belong, that still, as in past centuries, those who apparently seem to be different are observed with curiosity. It almost seems that our eye cannot accept what we perceive as other than us.

So, for once, I wanted to put people who are generally “observed” in the position to “observe”, so in passing we realize that someone else is observing us. This impulse led me to create a collective portrait that makes it impossible to categorize the individuals who inhabit the illustration.

Every single element is part of a larger design; horror vacui or divine drawing, these images can come together in a big puzzle, in which each individual influences and refers to the next, since this is exactly what happens in everyday life. A party of heterogeneous people with the awareness of being different yet perfectly identical to the rest of humanity. Some individuals are too often observed as being too different to be integrated within a society that pursues an ideal of a utopian human, forgetting who is already there, and is perfect as it is.