Maria Pechioli is a Milan-based interdisciplinary artist and producer. Her practice explores the interconnected relationships between humans and nature, as well as between individuals and communities. She will be participating in the Studio 88 “SensoryScapes” programme in November. Maria will be working on her performance ‘Mirrorless’.
Maria’s work explores the relationship between human and nature, individual and community. She investigates the processes of community formation and individual and collective transformations. This approach is reflected, for instance, in Maria long-lasting ongoing project Plotting the Urban Body #Milano. It reads the city as a living organism through Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). Referring to the TCM’s theory of the Five Elements, Maria identifies the city’s energy points, acupoints, and pathways, known as meridians, to ‘diagnose’ the city’s health.
This project further evolved into a performance Therapeutic interventions, during which Maria was “treating” twelve previously identified blocked points of Milan along three walking routes across the city for three consecutive days. Each action used foods prescribed by TCM dietetics (ginger, egg, milk, salt and turmeric) in accordance with the organ connected to the site, while special Six Healing Sounds (a set of “qi-gong” exercises aimed at detoxifying and strengthening each internal organ) were accompanying the whole process.
Since 2011 Maria the art director and project manager at Corniolo Art Platform: Residency program and summer school based in the rural area of Mugello Tuscany, Italy. Since 2009 she teaches at NABA (Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti), Italy’s largest fine arts academy. Maria is also a long-term artist-in-residence at Woodman Residency Foundation in Florence.
Artist Statement
My artistic research is on the body as tool for investigating political and ethical contexts activating social and aesthetic practices. Recent projects are related to queer culture, gender issues.
I adopt different aesthetic languages to build a knowledge based on engagement, self care, and community building. I intend this process as an intimate and public form of resilience.
The body as chemistry — Maria’s hybrid performance research project
During her time at Studio 88, Maria will work on her hybrid performance research project titled Mirrorless. Existing at the intersection of concert, philosophical-poetic reading, and tableau vivant, this performance draws on the methodology of an American composer Pauline Oliveros — Deep Listening. It is a sonic meditation practice and a philosophical framework of Oliveros that invites participants to turn attention toward body and environment. For Mirrorless, Maria will develop this research through original songs and through extended vocal practice: overtone/harmonic singing, letting one voice split into multiple frequencies, echoing hidden layers of transformation.
The performance treats the body as a site of chemistry. Maria reflects on bodily and environmental transformations as mirrors of one another and asks where individual freedom meets social and ecological structure and what determines our listening relationship to the living world around us.
During the SensoryScapes programme, Maria will explore Chiang Mai’s local ecology and traditions through its soundscape — temple bells, ritual chant, the resonance of Loy Krathong and Yi Peng, to include these unique sounds in her performance.
Learn more about Maria Pechioli on her website.
Studio 88 is accepting applications on an on-going basis. Check out our residency program and apply now.
