by Dores Sacquegna
The installation Little Stories by Maria Luisa Imperiali presents itself as a work suspended between matter and thought, between creative impulse and critical reflection. The artist builds a surreal assembly in which geometric shapes – circles, triangles, segments – they dialogue with organic elements, generating a landscape that is both fairytale and restless, metaphysical and lunar.
In the center of the composition dominates a large circle, primordial and symbolic element, which imposes itself as the generative fulcrum of the entire structure. From here a sort of umbilical cord unfolds which connects the different parts of the work, assembling fragments and figures in a coherent and vital system. Under this circle appears the figure of a newborn baby, origin and principle, from which the thread that holds together the “puzzle” of existence. Birth thus becomes a founding act not only biological, but narrative: everything originates from this act. The children face, repeated and inscribed within circles and triangles, they evoke the multiplicity of possible stories. Next to them the mother’s face emerges which, combined with that of her son, makes up the number eight, infinity symbol.
In this fusion a continuity is manifested that goes beyond the linear time of Official History to open up to a circular, cyclical dimension, deeply linked to the act of passing on and memory. The subtitle chosen by the artist – «History written by men hides the stories told by women» – is a programmatic statement guarded predominantly by men. In parallel, women have handed down another form of knowledge, intimate and daily, linked to care, to birth, creation and survival. A memory that is not monumental but essential, unofficial but founding.
With Little Stories, the artist makes a gesture poetic and political together: it mends what has been separated, makes visible what is remained on the margins, and proposes an alternative narrative where the generative feminine principle is not silent background but pulsating center. The work thus becomes a place of visual and symbolic dialogue, in which material dynamism and intellectual reflection merge, inviting the viewer to rethink the very concept of History and Memory.
Maria Luisa Imperiali Works & Words 