Anita Mucolli

Anita Mucolli (1993) works and lives in Basel (CH). The work of Anita Mucolli has always been interested in space. Space not only understood as a physical space, but as an anthropological dimension that ties our cultural concepts of time to the spaces we like, the spaces we imagine, and those spaces we inhabit through the many fantasies we produce through literature, cinema, comics, social media, etc. Space has many functions and a very important one is not only to be in but to collectively rehearse our past, our present, and our future. That’s the reason why the Ancient Greeks’ idea of collective memory was based on the active production of spaces where rituals and narrative symbols could appear in front of the community. We could even say that every space has, therefore, a cinematic and storytelling potential. Cinematic in the sense that when we enter certain spaces we are able to collect all the memories of similar spaces and also to project upon the space the actions that took place there. When we enter a kitchen, for example, decorated in the manner of the past, the past appears in front of our eyes. The storytelling dimension refers to how spaces make us talk, make us collect memories, and share them with others. That is probably the reason why former works of Anita Mucolli were room replicas – spaces identical to spaces we know. In doing so, she stressed her interest in memory, in all the simple actions that a space amplifies but also in sculpture and the power to still create something different out of elements that look similar to those we encounter in our everyday life.

Text: Chus Martinez