Interview with Silvia Serenari (English)
By Luca Misuri. Published in Open Doors Issue N. 5 Dec 2023.
Silvia Serenari has spent years on a personal journey into the world of philosophy, religion, esotericism and alchemical symbolism with the intent of infusing her work with spirituality and sacred references from both Eastern and Western culture.
In 2004 she made her debut with Anima Urbis, the search for soul in the city: a spiritual and contemplative journey in metropolitan chaos expressed through vid- eo language and digital photography reworked on the computer. In 2008 the Dora Diamanti contemporary art gallery in Rome held her first major personal exhibition: “Anima Urbis, Iter Perfectionis”. Followed by personal and collective exhibitions in public and private spaces in Italy and abroad, from Milan, Paris, Mumbai, Rome, and Brescia. Her work is currently on display at Gilda Contemporary Art Milan.
In recent years the search for the soul has moved from the city to nature, perhaps its more obvious home, moving from video and photography to more work in sculpture and installation.
Interview
I’m Luca Misuri, the art and visual editor for Open Doors Review. I am an artist (@wende.visual) with an aim to bring artists into communication with each other. Who knows how they will define the work of the 20th and 21st century… I tend to call this “Insta-Ganzika” art. (I am from Livorno, the translation will be difficult, sorry). (Editor’s Note: A combo of Instagram + trying to be cool).
A few years ago I was imagining an ideal space which would be a magnet to at- tract other creative personalities, like an artistic factory! Stuff we’ve already heard of course, but from this and other ideas (which I’ll tell you about one day) a surprising multiverse was activated and Studio 124 was created. After a musical performance Silvia Serenari approached me and a connection was created which, as we’ll discuss, was no coincidence.
Luca: Let’s start from this point, our meeting. Randomness, fate, the catalyzing event. What are your beliefs on this matter?
Silvia: Since I was twenty years old, the word “randomness” began to lose value in my life. In that period, some significant events opened the way for me to understand a different dimension permeated by subtle energies, an “Unus mundus”, as Jung de- fines it, where everything is connected. Randomness was therefore replaced by the concept of Synchronicity, or the manifestation of the relationship between mind and matter which demonstrates that the physical and psychic world are interconnected; and the concept of attraction, that is, that we are made of energy and attract similar energy. In the book “nothing happens by chance” the psychologist Hopcke writes: “The unusual occurrence of a synchronicity serves to orient our sensitivity towards this sacred and symbolic dimension of daily existence.”
Luca: On what other occasions did this energy manifest itself to further increase this belief?
Silvia: The first important event that outlined the path I still follow dates back to 1995. In that period a dear friend of mine was involving me in the search for a deeper reality, a “separate reality”: He had advised me to read Castaneda and one day, he asked if I wanted to do I CHING, the book of changes (the Chinese oracle), which I didn’t yet know about. I was so impressed and fascinated that I immediately asked him where I could buy it, but he replied: “if it’s fate that you have to do the I Ching (book of changes) the book will come to you by itself!” It seemed impossible to me that such a particular book could reach me on its own. But 15 days later (I still shud- der just thinking about it) at my father’s house looking in his bookcase I SAW IT! It belonged to Paola, his wife, and since she didn’t use it, as soon as I asked her if it was hers, she gave it to me without hesitation! This is the most important event at the be- ginning of my existential and artistic research, an “imprint” so strong that it leaves no doubt! From that moment on, my vision of the world changed profoundly and, as I increasingly refined my perception and opened myself to another world, I began to find myself more frequently involved in unusual events full of synchronicity. Many of these moments started with books that inspired me and allowed me to meet people similar to me and with the same energy. It also convinced me that I live in a world ordered by invisible laws and bonds that sometimes become visible to those who abandon themselves to its flow and to those who manage to “see beyond”. My latest artistic project is precisely about the search for these relationships and the energies that bind us to the entire universe. And as Jung says: the whole Universe seems to conspire so that real events full of symbolic charge happen suddenly as if to guide us.
Luca: You know what, you’re convincing me! I have always suspected connections like this existed, but I have never had the courage to dive in, to investigate thorough- ly. You, on the other hand, took the plunge. You mentioned that you followed various directions. What direct life experiences have you had? Tell us about your investigative journey that enriched you and consequently expanded your artistic multiverse.
Silvia: My journey towards an “other dimension” began in a magical place, a mys- tical pine forest, where I used to spend time playing or walking among the dense metaphysical pines, together with some friends who, like me, aspired to a “separate reality”.
This was not meant as an escape but as an in-depth study, that is, a wonderful journey into the kingdom of the “subtle”.
From there I began the first experiments aimed at enriching my perceptive sphere and trying to live in a timeless dimension in the “nunc stans”, the eternal present. After a two-year full immersion in this natural setting I began to frequent small com- munities due to my interest in spiritual growth.
From the Hare Krishnas (I was an external visitor) I participated several times in their Sunday ritual, singing and dancing in the Villa Vindravana temple. I attended Nichiren Daishonin’s Buddhism for a while, I went to the Tibetan monastery in Po- maia several times, I practiced various types of dynamic kundalini meditation, but the most immersive experience I had was with an Osho community. My role was to help in the kitchen and in exchange they gave me a caravan where I could stay my time in the community, and I could also attend the meditations for free. Unfortunate- ly and fortunately my experience did not last long. Due to my independent character, I immediately came into conflict with the owner and founder of the community, a woman of German origin.
I had questioned their interpretation of Osho’s message which aimed at indepen- dence of thoughts and being able to find one’s own path, freeing oneself from dogmas and religions. Basically they were very fanatical and venerated the figure of Osho as if he were a deity.
After countless disappointments in places frequented by people who are otherwise inclined to research and question themselves, I decided to retire to a private life, nourishing my critical and analytical vision of reality through philosophical, esoteric readings, and finding in art my “iter perfectionis.”
Intermission
A few days after the start of this conversation, I went to dinner with Silvia and we delved into the foundations of her artistic personality. We talked about her creative origins. The strong artistic personality of her father and the spirituality of the moth- er. She showed me the book of the I Ching, the 3 coins with which to “read” the sig- nals left by our energy, the library full of philosophy, psychology, esotericism, alche- my, the stones pierced by the lithodomes and the artwork present in the house (other pieces are in Milan in the Gilda Contemporary Art gallery).
I see the ceramics with the infinite geometries of Santa Maria del Fiore printed on them adapted to an even more universal language. These beautiful tiles were rejected by the Opera del Duomo Museum (the most beautiful museum in Florence located behind the Duomo itself) due to their Eastern interpretation of a Christian space. I have an ironic idea to put them in “my” space, a rooftop bar overlooking the front of the Duomo considering the back doesn’t want them.
She smiles and explains the dense network of numerological and geometric referenc- es and connections present in her dynamic mandalas and those in an eternal hiber- nation in Plexiglas (I love the 3D ones – iter Mysticum and Fluctuationem meam), or ceramic. It’s certainly not a random copy-paste or plug-in effect job. We move to her desk to see how everything is born. She clicks the mouse, the screen comes alive with total reflections, she enters one of those dimensions dominated by revealing flows that would fascinate any observer. Over a cup of tea (I mistakenly drink her green tea instead of my herbal one without even realizing it) we continue our discussion.
Luca: I’ve only understood the tip of the iceberg, but how would you explain to the reader your process of transforming a simple photo into a complex mandala? What is the symbolic significance of this process? When and how did the idea of using this digital method come to you?
Silvia: I arrived at this method thanks to previous experiments where I created geo- metric designs from real images. Anima urbis was my first project where I used dig- ital methods to give life to sacred geometries starting from photographs of the city. The idea came to me while I was walking along a stretch of Rome’s elevated ring road, in the Pigneto neighbourhood, where the road passes next to buildings and touches them.
In 2003, a small section was closed to traffic for two weeks. I took the opportunity to take photos and from that unusual perspective the miracle happened. There was a sort of metropolitan lighting, which led me to transform the chaotic images of the city, streets, buildings, and cars into superior geometric laws motivated by the reflec- tion that: everything that surrounds us and every moment of our life can be seen and experienced as a fragment of perfection. Not only does nature predispose one to con- templation, not only in meditation can one reach the “high peaks”, even in a frenetic city one can enter another dimension and transcend sensible reality. Furthermore, I managed to transform the ring road into harmonious images, thus operating, using the jargon of alchemists, the transmutation of lead into gold. Continuing over the years, the research (both conceptually and technically) became increasingly refined, ultimately creating the complex abstractions, the protagonists of subsequent works. This technical and repetitive process that I use to create the works is also, for me, like a form of meditation!
Luca: All that remains is to talk about the future…
Silvia: I am planting some seeds (to borrow an image from you that I really like), so that my future will be dotted with collective artistic projects, created with people who, like me, have the desire to share a common research path. I think that our era is isolating human beings too much and as the I Ching say, perfectly capturing my energy and therefore responding very precisely: “we must cooperate in common en- deavors to dissipate and dissolve the selfishness that divides”.
