Mazzi’s project reflects on the link between the Cervo municipality and its coast; more generally, it explores the link between man and sea. Although indispensable, this connection is often underestimated. Humanity’s very survival depends on the sea. The artist’s work takes shape beginning with the naturalistic peculiarities of a group that’s hugely important for both ecology and marine biodiversity: poriferous organisms, more commonly known as sponges. These organisms filter hundreds of liters of water each day and can perforate rock to obtain the material needed to build their skeleton, which is mainly composed of siliceous structures called spicules. The artist identified four shapes, which she reproduced using the same stone types the sponges use: marble, granite and peperino. The shapes were positioned at about a five-meter depth on the sandy seabed of Cervo’s coast.

The poetics of Elena Mazzi (Reggio Emilia, 1984) concern the relationship between humanity and the environment in which we live, the ways we operate in it, and how we bring about change. Adhering to a predominantly anthropological approach, her analysis investigates and documents both a personal and a collective identity related to a specific territory, giving rise to different forms of exchange and transformation.