Dripping

As part of Vision and Flesh, Moving Discourse presents the poetic writing of Maddalena Iodice, tracing the inscription of time into our flesh. Like Rage Milk, another contribution to Chapter 2 that explores the political dimensions of breastfeeding, her words evoke the dripping and flowing of breast milk, as well as processes of sedimentation and shedding that mark labour and the passing of time.
Time is abstract, immaterial, fluid. Yet its liquid nature seems to be gathered and stored in the body, sedimenting in its membranes and forming a tissue of memory.
In her installation, the artist Linda Lach remembers, collects, and interweaves fragments of the past that persist as material traces. As intimate as her archive, and as sensitive as its performative activation by dancer Sofia Naglieri (Moving Discourse – Videosection), is Iodice’s tender poetic response.
Time escapes our grasp; it lingers in the in-between. The ability to carry forward its ephemeral character – without fixing or enclosing its streaming nature in words – is a quality she brings to Moving Discourse. Her poetic dialogue is as delicate and fluid as the memories she evokes, which ebb and return in rhythmic waves.

Publisher’s Note: Shelly Wound is a project by Linda Lach performed by Sofia Naglieri, curated by Maddalena Iodice. Shelly Wound was supported by Hyperobjects and hosted by Hembryo an exhibition program based in Rome

VOICE I
[reflective murmur]
It drips, it has been dripping for hours, soaking the rhythm of time.
Thick and acrid, its scent is dysfunctional to the memory of nourishment,
of which that off-white flow is but a symbol.


VOICE II
[impulsive tone]
That milk has expired, just like the time is speaks of.


VOICE I
[gentle whisper]
Its corruption does not make it any less real.
And you are no less permeable to change than its mutable substance.



VOICE III
[breathing, assertive affirmation]
Try pumping milk out for months.
Gathering it, storing it, to feed the absence.
What is left on the chest is the exhaustion from the drainage.



VOICE IV
[tormented inflection]
My stomach is full of void.
I hear voices of hunger that relentlessly tear the gaze apart,
yet from the words only their echo speaks.
For me, mere information, a combination of sharp-edged letters,
for them, the others, the transcendence of brutality.

VOICE I
[firm tone]
We are traces of indifference and dissent.
A paradoxical body, extension of blurred memories
and witness to a barren historicisation.


VOICE II
[despotic attitude]
Structure is needed to organise memory,
to bring order in the regime of reason.
Let every uncertainty be erased!



VOICE III
[assertive expression]
And with it, each of us?
Our organic permeability, the opalescent resin of our memory,
the imprints of which the body is clay.



VOICE I
[swallowing, reflective murmur]
Since we entered here, our breathing has changed.
And the fixity of thought before the incomprehensible has shifted,
searching for residues of lived experience to cling to,
to make sense of the present.



VOICE IV
[suspension, grave tone]
It drips, it has been dripping for hours, it has been dripping forever.
Each drop feels like saliva, speaking the memories severed by the system.

___________________

More information:

Shelly Wound is a project by Linda Lach performed by Sofia Naglieri, curated by Maddalena Iodice. Shelly Wound was supported by Hyperobjects and hosted by Hembryo an exhibition program based in Rome https://www.hyperobjects-official.com/w/projects/ / https://www.instagram.com/hembryo_/

A work by Linda Lach

Performer: Sofia Naglieri

Curator: Maddalena Iodice

Produced by: Camilla Giaccio Darias

Video: Hyperobjects / Hembryo / Circa Studio, consisting of: Maria Giovanna Sodero, Eleonora Mattozzi and Laura Accardo

Special thanks to: Valerio Volpato , Alice Maria Sinni

About the artist: Linda Lach (she/his, b. 1995) – polish artist whose practice explores subjects of personal memory, care, bodily exhaustion and experience of isolation. Working with aluminium, resin, and synthetic fabrics, she utilises intimate transparencies and self-overwriting signals as carriers that challenge the anthropocentric perspective. What does it mean to have a “body”? How to define its extents? By proposing an intersectional model of reality that is continuous and infinite, rather than quantifiable and categorisable, Lach advocates for a heterogeneous reality that combines optimal efficiency of survival strategies with biological balance. Her unique approach is informed by her background in Fine Arts and Particle Physics Winner of the Grand Prix for Best Diploma at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw (2022) and the Strabag International Art Award (2023). Her works were featured at, among others: Salzburg Kunstverein, Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, Foksal Gallery, BWA Wrocław, Artagon Pantin, GSW Opole and Ars Electronica Festival.