Press:
Molseed J. , Cinel's latest piece is a walk of art. An artist from Italy working in Minnesota contemplates time with her new piece. https://www.postbulletin.com/lifestyle/arts-and-entertainment/cinels-latest-piece-is-a-walk-of-art
Walks by Danilo Cinel and Gianna Balli (Italy) and Zoe Cinel (US)
Sound by Agnese Banti
Video by Zoe Cinel
Land acknowledgment: As I walk on this land as an immigrant who moved to Minnesota voluntarily, I acknowledge that walking is in itself a privilege: I am grateful to my feet and muscles for still supporting me. Along the way, one step at the time, I become more and more aware that my presence in this country is the product of a history of colonization, violence, slavery and globalization. As I walk, I also learn from the trees, the roads and the marks. I thank the original people who cared for and called this land home, the Ojibwe and Dakota people. My respects, support and love goes to them and to the descendants of the African American diaspora, as I march next to them demanding justice.
Project Description: I am an immigrant artist currently living in Minnesota, US. It was heartbreaking to be away from home during the outbreak of COVID, knowing that Italy, my home country, was from the very beginning among the most affected by the spread of the virus. Many times during these last 5 months, I felt powerless and cornered by my own desire to pursue an art career and relocate to a foreign country, away from the people who matter the most.
At the beginning of May, after about two months of complete isolation, people could finally step out of their houses and take walks in the neighborhood. Walking has always been one of my parents’ favourite family activities and my emotional lifeline during quarantine. With the hope to celebrate their renewed freedom to walk outside and my brand new daily ritual, my parents and I collaborated on a project that started with the simple yet dense and healing gesture of walking.
We found a common thread into the number 7. My parents and I live 7 hours apart from each other. 7pm was the time in which we all enjoyed a good old walk to decompress. We walked everyday for 7 days discovering what our passage in space could be visualized from a distance: a sequence of lines and drawing on a map. Then we wondered about how that distance between us sounded. And it sounded just like the metallic beat of a wifi: a symphony made of a connection and digital technology.
What you see in the video is a visual transformation of all these walks. Each walk corresponds to a day in the week and to a note that plays for exactly 7 second and represents the soundtracks for 7 moments in time and space in which my parents and I walked side by side from a distance. Turning a daily practice such as walking into an artistic media opened up new possibilities on how to build memories together even across two time zones, an ocean and a pandemic.