Il cielo nel mare, il mare nel cielo (The sky in the sea, the sea in the sky) is a new installation by Renato Leotta (b. 1982, Turin, lives and works between Turin and Acireale), which represents a further step in his experimentation with the technique of photographic impression in the recording of the natural landscape. The seascape, in particular, has been, in recent years, the center of the artist’s research: the Mediterranean Sea as a basin of natural biodiversity to be preserved, a place of encounter and exchange between ancient cultures, a route of migration in the past as today.

The ten photograms that compose the installation depict sea urchins floating in the water that have been immortalized directly on photographic paper, immersed in seawater for a few seconds, and exposed to moonlight, transforming the landscape itself into a large darkroom. The shadow of the sea urchins projected on the paper is impressed in negative: in the photograph, they become luminous bodies.

In the booth, Leotta reconstructs the landscape with elements belonging to the landscape itself, which is the subject and at the same time the medium of the installation. The seascape dotted with sea urchins is transposed onto the wall, immersing the visitor in a silent, abyssal underwater dimension that recalls the sidereal one of the cosmos. In the words of the artist:

“Ten sea urchins draw a map of the sky.

They are stars, comets, planets, suns, people.

Fallen into the sea during the night.

They are females and males; they are purple, red, brown, yellow.

At night they are blue.

They have spikes. They move and shield themselves from light.”

This dance of the sea urchins choreographed by Leotta reveals that in nature even what seems inert actually pulsates with life.

Please click HERE for further information on the project.