PROJECTS

Mara Palena’s artistic process revolves around a research on human emotions in relation to time, memory and identity. Experimentation is a constant of her method which sees the combination of different techniques, mediums and languages. In installations and mixed-media works, the artist uses photography, sound and video as a starting point, to then manipulate and alter them, questioning the concept of memory and individuality. The awareness of human frailty haunts her research: the study of emotional states becomes central in the design of multisensory and multimedia installations. Conscious and unconscious; present, memory and projection are confused in the existential fragments that the artist combines within his projects, relying on different methods of studying the self:  from psychoanalysis, to sound therapy, to EMDR, processes crossed by the artist herself and then return to her own personal elaboration. However, the intimate sphere opens up to the collective, in the construction of immersive scenarios that empathically welcome the viewer in a large, potentially infinite mnemonic archive. Collecting moments and recording states of imperceptible vulnerability opens up towards the hope of tracing a shared feeling.