Parlare, 1999
Parlare is an excerpt from the larger 1996 installation Mia Casa. A red wall is covered in various black and white details and textures of furniture, coverings, and accessories from domestic objects, images of the artist pronouncing Italian verbs, and reproduced passport images of Italian women. The photographs are displayed in 8”x10” and 5”x7” brass frames layered and hung at various lengths. A monitor set on a Queen Anne style table displays an 8-minute video loop with audio. The video displays the artist attempting to pronounce Italian verbs.
From the Gallery 44 exhibition catalogue, Rare (Ad)diction (1998) by curator Scott McLeod:
As a third generation Italian-Canadian woman, Di Risio is compelled to confront her alienation from her ethnicity and the challenges of forging meaningful relationships with her female relatives through the barriers of language, culture, religion, and conflicting perceptions of the role of women. Beneath a veneer of neutrality, the artist's frustration at the difficulty of her task is expressed through the laboured repetition of " to know, to tell, to seek, to live, to want, to lose, to ask, to recognize, to choose, to need...". The integration of the artist's portrait within the wall of photos demonstrates Di Risio's imperative to create a place for herself which reconciles her cultural heritage with her personal experience. The desire to find her voice is literally manifested through the incantation "to speak, to know, to be...".
Installation documentation at Kamloops Art Gallery, photography by Kim Clarke.