@ Rosa Lacavalla
La Festa Dell’Equatore
    2020-ongoing






    An attempt to mend a piece of sky unfurling over an ocean of me- mories, La Festa Dell’Equatore is an initiatory journey, a crossing of boundaries, an invitation to immerse oneself in a continuous flow of transformations.

    The project’s title itself pays homage to a poignant rite of passage that took place aboard steamships transporting migrants to South America. It was a celebratory moment, a communal commemo- ration marking the approach of a new life. However, it was often followed by profound silence, accompanied by eyes filled with tears and a mixture of hopes and nostalgia.

    The Equator, that invisible line splitting our planet in two, acts as a symbolic meeting point where people’s paths cross. Connecting imagination and memory, the narration unfolds on three main le- vels. First, it examines how stars move and appear differently from one hemisphere to the other.
    Second, it delves into the fragmen- ted history of the artist’s husband’s Italo-Argentinian family. Finally, the third level brings these scientific and personal stories together with the concept of family constellations, a therapeutic method that looks at how family patterns and transgenerational traumas affect our lives and relationships, helping us understand how the past and present are linked.

    Past and present, reality and dream merge, projecting us towards a future yet to be written, while stars sing from the deep blue of eternity to the soul of the Ocean.







    The Crossing Ceremony is a single-channel video installation that binds found footage of the Equator line-crossing ceremony - featuring old and contemporary rituals - with more evocative imagery capturing the essence of migration connected to the phenomenon of “moving stars”.

    The videowork invites viewers to embark on a voyage alongside King Neptune, the revered guardian of the oceans. Within the narrative, Neptune prepares for a pivotal event—the crossing of the Equator Line—a celestial boundary of great significance for himself and all inhabitants of his realm. Transitioning into the second part, the narrative delves into a more introspective perspective, metaphorically depicting the challenges of the journey and the profound symbolism inherent in traversing the invisible threshold, intertwined with the shifting patterns of celestial bodies in the night sky.

    7’’02’, Color, Sound
    Voice-over: English
    Subtitles: English (available also in Italian or Spanish)
    Music: Hernán Paulitti







    La Festa dell’Equatore is an exploration of geographical and emotional distances between two hemispheres. Combining different media, including photography, video, audio recordings, found footage, and archive, the project adopts a transmedia narrative format.

    A selection of it is contained within a website, offering a contemporary and imaginative view on the journey of people and stars migration, while overlapping historical materials and references.

    Using a narrative that distinguishes between reality and dream, the website offers an engaging experience to users, allowing them to explore these themes freely and intuitively.

    Within each section, they will find a wide range of multimedia content, including documents, audio recordings, an interactive map, texts, and videos arranged in a non-linear manner to stimulate exploration and discovery.

    A key element is represented by crossing the equator line, symbolizing the passage between different hemispheres, both physically and metaphorically.


    Website still under construction.