"Passaggio Specchiante" by Celo1studio
Passaggio Specchiante (Mirrored Passage) is a site-specific work conceived for Peccioli at Palazzo Pescatori, an ancient palace in the historic center of Peccioli that owes its current name to the family that lived there for almost two centuries, until 2019 when the wife of the last member passed away. The pink building has three floors, a rectangular plan and is unique in the urban panorama of the historic center of Peccioli because it is isolated from the other houses, that is, free on all four sides.
Passaggio Specchiante reflects on the mirror as an object and vehicle of our image. “Entering into a relationship with the mirror means entering into a relationship with an us that is external to us; with all the dilemmas that follow: Am I really like this? Is that my image? Is what I see objective? It is certainly necessary to have faith in the object that par excellence reflects us and, perhaps, the real difficulty lies in having faith in us who look at it.
Passaggio specchiante frees us from the search for objectivity and projects us (just like the mirror) into an absurd and bizarre world, where we are no longer one but multiple, where the mirror object mocks us, plays with us to create images of another reality that makes us realize that the mirror’s true ability is probably precisely this: to invent worlds, projecting them to infinity, distorting, duplicating and tripling. Entering into a relationship with the work allows us to be an active part of this process, we as individuals and as multitudes continually reinvent the work. Through the passage that occurs between the two doors of Palazzo Pescatori, what apparently seems like a corridor, is transformed into a transformer of elements and the elements par excellence become us who walk through it. To allow this game of references, the first step is to cross what apparently seems like a wall, an obstacle and a closure that has the shape of an ellipse; our eye deludes itself into thinking that the passage is closed, but as we get closer, we discover that that very wall is actually a door – a metaphorical one – and that in the equally metaphorical gesture of opening it, it transports us to the “mirrored worlds”.
Celo1studio is a design duo composed of Edward Raneri e Costantino Gucci.
The work developed by the two designers focuses on the creation of objects and installations that interact with the perception of the user. To achieve this result, they often choose to work with reflective surfaces such as glass and mirrors. These materials influence the observer’s reflection in unexpected ways.
