DIORAMA

"Diorama" is a site-specific installation specially conceived by Martina Cioffi for the spaces of Platea and its audience. The artwork is composed like a sandy, arid landscape made up of small rock crystals and inhabited by zoomorphic and phytomorphic objects with sparkling forms.

The direct reference for the construction of "Diorama" is the legendary lake or sea Gerundo, an ancient stagnant water mirror located in Lombardy between the territories of the Adda and Serio rivers, in an area that today is infertile and mostly gravelly. Between history and myth, popular narration tells that the waters of Lake Gerundo touched the Insula Fulchera on which Crema stands, bathed the city of Lodi, and that its depths were inhabited by a sea dragon, remembered in Lombard medieval tradition.

The disappearance of the lake is attributed to land reclamation work carried out over the years by Benedictine and Cistercian monks. It is on these grounds that the artist conducted research to trace the fundamental steps of the hydrogeological events that affected the Lodi territory, leading up to today's massive extraction and storage of gas that burdens the local soil.

"Diorama" therefore presents itself as a panorama inspired by a fantastic past that nonetheless evokes a dystopian future, where the land has completely lost its nutrients, transforming into an endless expanse of fine dust that is difficult to distinguish and avoid as it inexorably reproduces itself step by step. The new protagonists of this narrative appear as beings in which the animated and inanimate blend, hybrids composed of wood.

We would like to thank the Fondazione Comunitaria della Provincia di Lodi for the financial contribution aimed at supporting Martina Cioffi’s exhibition project.