Mneme – Ancona Culture

The Greek word Mneme literally means memory; a certainly strong word, which expresses a concept full of profound and never obvious meanings. The semantic root is the same as Mens, or mind, to testify to the strong and inseparable bond that unites memory and thought. The title of this exhibition therefore has a very specific objective, namely to immediately clarify the creative path that Pia Bacchielli has chosen to follow on the occasion of this, her latest project.

Thanks to her experience as a professional journalist, Pia Bacchielli decides to investigate the world that lives deep within her interiority, fueled by memory and memories. Here then Mneme becomes the password to enter this personal and introspective universe, in which she wishes to lead the observer through highly expressive photographic shots capable of giving shape to emotions. All Pia Bacchielli’s photographs are in fact the fruit of a profound reflection, of a true artistic strategy, almost of a performance, during which what is initially only an idea in her mind magically becomes reality, observed and isolated within a potentially infinite sequence of possibilities. The creative act is the true strength of her artistic expression, originating from a feeling that first becomes an idea, then realization and finally sharing.

The starting point of this journey is a family photo that comes from a distant and remote past: there is a country house where a renegade bride lives, afflicted by the pain of rejection but animated by the hope of starting to live again. The young woman observes a merry-go-round in which those who are perhaps her family members take part and from this apparent moment of delight, now lost in the meanders of time, an artistic movement is born that continues to the present day. Pia Bacchielli has in fact chosen to be inspired by the story of that young bride, who is none other than her Colomba’s great-grandmother; so the personal memory passed down from generation to generation itself becomes a creative act and the origin of the elegant and refined shots exhibited during this exhibition. There is a house that seems to have been built with the bricks of a spring dream, there are the primordial roots of an oak and the long hair of a girl with a dull face, symbols of the bonds that cannot (and must not) be severed, there is a garden of lost roses, where the female presence becomes an emblem of an ancestral world in which injustices do not exist, there is a white horse that recalls childhood stories where everything was possible, there are some emptied clothes that testify unexpected absences. The awareness of the importance of remembrance and memorial value clearly shines through; element of connection between her personal past and collective memory is represented by a young woman who, like an ancient Greek goddess, is portrayed at the moment in which she is about to cut off her very long braid, which has grown over time and is thoroughly soaked of memories.

The strength of these photographs does not only consist in their obvious elegance, but also in the profound meaning they convey. The gaze with which Pia Bacchielli observes the world is in fact intimate and patient, and becomes, shot after shot, a true aesthetic of the soul and of memory. These shots allow us to see well beyond the photographic perspective, beyond the limit of individualism; the observer thus has the opportunity to stop, contemplate and meditate on the passage of time and the importance of one’s roots, trying to recall a past where everything and everyone still coexists in a single large circle. As Mario Luzi said, the important thing is not to linger for too long.