Chiara Bettazzi Interview​
Featured in the catalogue publication for The Tilt of Time
Chiara Bettazzi is an artist and photographer whose artistic practice involves the reworking of everyday objects. On the occassion of The Tilt of Time exhibition, Bettazzi realises a site-specific installation in the entrance of IED, titled Shift, consisting of a collection of objects and materials from the institution's storage and from her personal studio. Her selection of objects feature a mix of organic and industrial materials, ranging from glass bottles, broken dishware, plants, carbonised wooden pedestals and chairs, feather, and multi-textured fabrics. The objects take centre stage as their arrangement creates an immersive environment referencing sculpture, art history and life in general. Visitors immediately find themselves in the middle of a space where they become part of the passaf eof time, their experience of everyday objects shifts drastically; organic shapes decay, evolve, and move around them.
Q: When contemplating the concept of time, what's one word that comes to your mind as a representation of its essence?
​
A: Perhaps the word that comes to mind at the moment is cyclicity. The cyclic aspect in my work is characterised by pauses and suspension that anticipate large movements of matter. This marks and creates collections of work, which also very clearly emerge in the photographic cycles that I realise.
​
Q: In your installations, you transform the narrative of 'past' objects: they lived a life 'before' and live a new one 'now' in your work. What does this aspect of transformation mean to you?
​
A: The concept of transformation is at the core of my work; it's constantly transforming. Within each of my installations, objects exist in a different way from how they used to exist. They continually reappear from past contexts, changing in form and in association with the other things present in the installation. The installations stop in time at the precise moment the exhibition takes place. Afterwards, they return as matter that I work with, store, and preserve in my space. I often utilise used and discarded objects that have already acquired their own specific history through the passage of time and the way they have been used. Re-actualising these objects and using them again is like giving them a second life. At the same time, what I'm looking for is a new image that is always different.
​
Q: Regarding the objects you use in your installations, would you say that the relinquishing of control to the passage of time has always been the intention in your work? How did you get to this method?
​
A: No, not at all... in the beginning, there were small traumas. The installations would accidentally collapse, either because someone hit them or just by themselves after softer time, but this was originally seen as a negative thing. Then while assembling and disassembling my exhibitions, especially after Castello di Ama in 2019, I realised that when the installation collapsed, the fragments produced were actually interesting to use again. It was at that moment that I accepted it wasn't the object itself that was important, but what it became. I wasn't attracted by symbolic value, but by the transformation of the material. However, I believe that the change in the role of photography in my work process also played a role in this, photography made me freer.
​
Q: You work with objects, but also with photography. During our visit to your studio, you described your use of photography as a performance. Can you tell us more about your personal approach to photography?
​
A: Over the years, I used photography in my work in a diaristic way and often specifically in preparation for the construction of an installation. I used it practically, in the studio and continuously captured rehearsals of compositions and poses. Since 2019 this behind-the-scenes practice of mine became autonomous and a work in itself.
I started to compose photo diaries, whereas I now produce large format photographs, structured by the space and light I choose. In my most recent work outside of my studio, I placed two cameras in the space and continuously shot what I was building and unbuilding in a continuous movement, freezing moments of time within the resulting compositions. What started as studies in the early years have over time became sizeable works in themselves.
​
Q: What caused the change in your approach to photography, from photo diaries to large format compositions that stand out as works of their own?
​
A: I think it's simply the process in which I work. In 2018, I made a large installation at the National Gallery in Rome, the exhibition was called Il mondo infine, vivere tra le rovine. This opportunity gave rise to an important turning point in my practice, moving a quantity of objects from my studio to Rome, and installing them inside a large hall of the museum. This move generated a shift in my perception and added a sense of freedom and plural perspectives to my practice; it's as if a thousand other ways of seeing my work were emerging before me. My work has always been linked to my studio in Prato, where I still spend most of my time. One day, walking along the river Bisenzio, I picked up some natural things I found along the way and brought them back to the studio. I had not take photographs for a long time... and that day instead of photography objects on the ground as I often did for diaries, I mounted a marble top on two easels, creating a table. I placed the natural things I had picked up during the walk, placing some objects beside it... I realised I had generated my first still life.
​
Q: The site-specific installation you realised in the entrance of the iED-building in Florence consists of a collection of objects and materials you chose from the storage spaces of IED Firenze, as well as from your personal studio. Why is it important for you to find and include objects related to the physical space of the exhibition in addition to your personal collection? How did the objects you chose from the storage spaces influence the choice of objects in your studio?
​
A: What I'm working on in my recent works is precisely this combination of 'foreign' objects that join my own, these are things and items from my studio that have kept me company for years. The work becomes contaminated with new things, changing shape and transforming itself each time in a different way, leading to new discoveries. The view of unused objects in the storages spaces of IED created a sort of photographic reference list, which I use in the studio and preparation phase for the installation, involving choosing things from my archive. The choice is made through a sort of mutual recollection. The installation thus results from the union of different memories, forming a collective. This way of proceeding by intuition represents the way in which I enter into a relationship with the new space that I'm working with. It's a way of creating dialogue with a new dimension, as well as an exchange with the people who inhabit it.
​
Q: In your installations, the force of gravity plays an important role, and objects are given the freedom to reach a breaking point. Can you explain this dynamic within your practice?
​
A: Everything is brought to a point of exhaustion, in the sense that it's lived and re-lived. My installations often show precarious balances of stacked and assembled objects that can fall and break. These form a 'path of errors' that exist within my work and are understood as new possibilities nd new images to be found. This often leads to things being left to the natural passing of time. What is broken changes shape and is continuously reused and recycled
​
Q: Can you describe the impact of observing your objects interact differently within each space you work in - both with the new, foreign objects and with the individuals who visit your installations?
​
A: Working in contact with different spaces is beautiful, but surely the most beautiful thing is to see the reactions in people's faces as they experience the environment in a different way. Above all, they see the everyday objects they know change shape.