"One person holding an identity card in his hands, doesn’t mean that he
knows who he is. We don’t recognise ourselves in printed characters or
numbers, but rather we identify ourselves in a certain mirrored shape,
in the story of a past adventure, or in the image of an expressed idea.
Actually we, the human beings, are a perfect bond of concrete and
abstract: a tangible body in which is kept a precious essence called
soul.
This union originates a life made of actions, thoughts, emotions and
desires; but if this fragile ensemble, made up of breath and matter,
cracks, in a short time it would break up into little pieces, and
everything will stop around: time, movement, thought, and sentiment.
The world will become a cold, empty, silent place.
Once that the bond is split, the soul comes out quietly, walks away,
little further she sits, and there, from the corner of the vacuous room,
she stares at the body, which is lying, it is moving, its shape is
changing, its colour is fading, so it becomes meaningless material.
This is what happened when I stopped loving my life, when I denied my
own humanity ceasing to feed my limbs and forgetting the spirit there,
in that dark corner.
In a few moments I embodied a spectral figure, I was a suffering
screaming body, but unfortunately that shout was heard only by the
people who were around me; inside there was just emptiness and silence.
Glassy bones, weak muscles, and a heart beating more and more slowly.
AN-ÓREXIS=lack of desire.
Anorexia: this is the name of that demon, who disguised as me, darkened
my existence for a few long, hard years.
After all my strength, my vital energy, has always fed on desires and
dreams; they are the basis, the roots of my experiences, of my being;
therefore once these have been weakened, all the rest sinks slowly into
oblivion.
Obviously the evident abstinence was against food, but during all that
period I gave up many things, that people should never do without.
First of all the unawareness of what was happening paralysed every
emotions, and inhibited the vital instinct that would have liked to ask
for help, but it couldn’t, because it was already enchained to an image
and a state of being that filled up my own identity.
The only way I felt I could express my self was through arts: so every
thought, pain, and scream was drawn on paper using pencils and pastels;
printed on notebooks syllable after syllable; trapped on a film with a
shutter click; and finally I used to hide them between the folds of the
fabrics that I employed to create lively shapes and volumes, in order to
make the drab figure that represented me more human and meaningful
looking.
Secondly I renounced to the overwhelming emotions of happiness; the ones
that make every capillary shake, that fill eyes with sweet tears, those
ones which knot together in throat.
Moreover I deprived my self of the possibility of sharing profound
friendships, those ones that accompany people during the whole path of
growth so that they can remember them with a smile on their face and
happiness in their eyes.
In the end I denied love to myself .
During these past years I’ve been someone never seen before; I couldn’t
recognise the joyful and sparkling child I looked at in old pictures…
I was silent and alone in the isolated world that I was building taylormade
for me and the devil who lived inside myself.
However this year something has changed.
My passion for art and my sewing machine have lead me in a theatre where
I’ve found out of the ordinary people, who have made born a strong
desire in depths; a desire of living and enjoying the amount of beauty
that inhabit the real world.
After so many tears and blues I managed to hold the hand that, since the
beginning, had been extended towards me as a token of help.
Finally I’ve discovered myself in someone, in a real person with her own
character, and a personality originated by a complex of genes that
belong to me, but also marked by the past experiences, that have shaped
a whole woman over the time.
Now I am able to look backwards and feel not only sorrow, but rather I
can see something positive too in what I have lived.
Loneliness gave me the opportunity of meditating for a long time, of
travelling introspectively, and so exploring the deepest meanders that
intersect inside my own I.
The reigning silence in my bowels let me notice the importance of
discovering the secrets and so improving the human senses:
Listening. It could be the voice of the wind, or the one of the sea; it
could be the tale of a trusty friend, or the one of an unknown poet;
anyone has something to say and share; listening to these sounds and
these words enriches the variety of shades of the spectator’s soul.
Touching. I learned to perceive the feeling aroused by the movements of
the far end of my fingertips: the softness of wool, the elegance of
silk, the lightness of a flower and lastly the solace of a caress.
Moreover I learned to feel the contact with the ground, since the naked
feet are our physical bound with the planet, which conveys to us
harshness on rocks, fiery roughness on asphalt, cool relief on the green
moss, and freedom in the stream of salt water.
The sense of smell. I felt disgust aroused by the stinky smell of
putrefaction, and ecstasy caused by the pleasing fragrance of Spring.
The sight. Often I stopped in the contemplation of a work of art, of
people walking and crowding streets, of an animal catching his prey or a
bee pollinating one flower.
The world shows us a lot of things, both wonders and horrors; to get
them gives meaning to our existence here.
For this reason the relationship with nature should be preserved and
cultivated, never overlooked or taken for granted; after all we are part
of it, so if there is harmony with the Mother , it is possible to reach
the so yearned balance.
So during these years, that I have spent in a profound meditative
dimension, my soul has made progress regarding its twisted path of
growth; but now, that my machine of interaction with the World is turned
on again too, I feel ready to act and to be completely free; I am no
more impeded by the weight of that devil anchored in my subconscious.
Therefore I will let me guide by the stars which will suggest dreams to
my mind, I will keep on conversing through the arts that I love and
above all I will cease to destroy the most precious masterpiece present
on the planet: the body itself.
On the contrary I will allow it to be, to change and to express itself
through features and movements.
I feel alive; so I want to move, I want to dance, I dream to leave with
a group of circus athletes, to perform in one thousand acrobatics and
travel along the endless paths that branch off from here and envelop our
marvellous world; and so discover and demonstrate to everyone, which
great potentials we, magnificent creatures, posses."

Visualising Ilaria's powerful and touching story, London 2019