Rainy Silver Clouds by Chiara Ventura

Chiara Ventura's site-specific art installation in the FAO cafeteria is composed of emergency bags, typically used for storing and supplying water in special conditions to bring awareness to water waste. It presents a vibrant and symbolic aesthetic, exuding a lively energy influenced by Pop culture. It references Andy Warhol's installation Silver Clouds, a prominent figure in American Pop Art who designed silver balloons and inflated them with a patented mixture of air and helium. These silver bags thus become a striking signal within the FAO cafeteria architecture, where water is consumed and wasted daily. They serve as a means of raising awareness among the public who, after their meals are finished, realizes that these decorative and radiant elements in the room were installed to convey a message: use water resources more consciously and avoid wasting this precious and limited resource.

The bags are filled with the (clean) water wasted when waiting for shower water to heat up. It was collected by a FAO staff member over the course of 10 days in their home and will be used to water plants after the World Food Forum week, creating no waste.

The work is a tribute not only to Silver Clouds but also to its variations and to the practice of portraiture in Warhol's work, which reinterprets the faces of the most prominent figures of the time through advertising language, transforming his works into points of reflection for the public. The dual meaning of the word "reflection" is one of the key elements of Chiara Ventura's work: I reflect on myself and I reflect. An invitation to see oneself in the shiny surface of Rainy silver clouds and at the same time direct one's thoughts and attention towards reflection on one's own behavior and habits regarding daily water usage, a primary and essential resource.

Placed in the cafeteria where water is consumed daily, the work serves as an act of awareness for the public, who, after finishing their meal, realize that the decorative and radiant elements in the room have been installed to symbolize a message: to use water resources more consciously and avoid wasting such a necessary yet limited resource as water.

About Chiara Ventura

Chiara Ventura was born Verona, Italy in 1997 and lives and works between her hometown and Venice. Trained as a painter, she analyzes behaviors and gestural forms through performance practice, with attention to minimal and simple aspects. For an investigation of the gaze and observational skills in everyday, routine contexts, performances and interventions often take on a mimetic character that prefers the extra-artistic context, investigating and denouncing the more insidious aspects of the forms of violence present in contemporary society. Chiara’s work is purely existential in character, where biography becomes a cipher.

Curated by innesto | spazi di ricerca and Tramandars