FvdB artist in residence blog - an introduction

Dear readers, welcome to the Stichting Françoise van den Bosch's Artist in Residency blog.
The blog is meant as an online platform for the artist in residence to share his/her research, thought process and work.

My name is Margherita Potenza and I am the artist selected for the 2017 residency programme. The project I will develop in my time here in Amsterdam is entitled Body as territory / jewellery as map. The aim of my research will be to look at how we think of the human body as well as the way we perceive it, all of us being human bodies' inhabitants.

Kiki Kogelnik, Untitled (Hanging), ca. 1970

Particularly, I am interested in questioning the duality that forms our experience of the body: on one hand the abstract recognition of the human shape; on the other the sensible perception of its corporeity and its relation to space. Both these processes are essential in defining our interaction with world, but how do they co-exist? Does our cultural context lean more on one rather than the other? Can we come to an understanding of the body that integrate both?

Francesco di Giorgio Martini, Proportioning of sacred construction to human body, 1475 ca.

Today, in the full blooming of the digital age, the discourse around the body seems to tend more toward its virtualisation and its loss of materiality. So can it be relevant to focus on its fleshly presence rather than its numeric transformation?

Pamela Rosenkranz, Firm being (stay neutral), 2009

When it comes to talk about the body, its awareness, its expression and projection, jewellery is an apt medium. As an object it stands on the same border mentioned above, between abstraction and perception. Jewellery is made to be worn and at the same time it is often solely looked at, and barely touched.

Cecil Beaton, Coronation portrait of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, 1953

Most importantly, it carries in itself the evidence of its historical background. So, how could jewellery help us map the body? How could it connect its different levels of existence, and draw the picture in its integrity?

During my residency at Françoise van den Bosch Foundation I wish to create a wearable object that outlines both the sensitive, cognitive and emotional space of the body.