Untitled (Chiesa di Sant'Antonio, 2024), Breno, Italy

Untitled (Chiesa di Sant'Antonio, 2024) is a site-specific video installation documenting a durational action performed inside Chiesa di Sant'Antonio Abate in Breno, Italy. In the video, the artist slowly traces the full circumference of the devotional space with an extended finger, following the narrow corner where the wall meets the floor.

Perhaps an act of devotion, perhaps an act of obsession, perhaps an act of transmutation, the work gives sustained attention to an architectural line that is usually passed over or ignored. In a church, where grand adornments, frescoes, ceilings, and crafted architecture often direct the eye upward, this gesture redirects attention downward, toward the modest seam between vertical and horizontal space.

The action follows a unicursal path, calling to mind the labyrinths found in Christian churches from the early medieval period onward. Like a labyrinth, the path does not branch. It is continuous, deliberate, and bounded. The act of tracing it suggests pilgrimage on a reduced scale: a devotional movement compressed into the circumference of a room, undertaken through focus, duration, and bodily submission to a simple repeated task.

The video frame and the presence of the pointing finger operate as tools for directing attention. They insist on slow looking within a space more commonly encountered through vista, ornament, and architectural grandeur. The finger becomes a guide, a marker, and a measure of attention, moving along a line that is both physically present and conceptually overlooked.

Installed in the same space where the action was performed, the video creates a direct relationship between image, site, and viewer. As the viewer watches, they may begin to recognize that the recorded path belongs to the room they occupy. This recognition encourages a closer examination of the architecture, perhaps even prompting the viewer to locate the finger’s position in the space as it progresses through the video. In this way, the work folds documentation back into site, turning the edge of the room into a place of discovery, attention, and quiet devotional focus.

Special thanks to:
The Camus Museo of Breno
The Crit Lab Italian Residency 2024
and
RUC Residency, Cividate Camuno
for the support and opportunity to create work in this space.

and to Crit Lab RUC Residency artists

Elizabeth M Lindy, Julie Weiman, and Molly Wagner
for production support