Italian transdisciplinary artist Rebecca Moccia’s research encompasses different geographical contexts, exploring the emotional states of loneliness and its politicization, starting from the common experience of isolation and dissolution of daily life experienced during the pandemic, and expanding at the structural causes on loneliness.
For two weekends, August 5, 6, & 7, and August 12, 13, & 14, 2022, Rebecca Moccia will be at Magazzino to host one of her public research sessions, inviting guests to contribute to her research project, as well as the opportunity to reflect on their own relationship to loneliness, by completing a short, questionnaire based on the UCLA Loneliness Scale, a survey developed by the University of California in 1978 to assess the level of loneliness of a particular subject, then manipulated by the artist.
Similar public research sessions are being conducted internationally, in accordance with the international focus of the artist’s project, in locations such as London, Munich, Tokyo, and Milan.
Her research project, Ministry of Loneliness, currently explores our relationship with loneliness and pain heightened by the common experiences of the COVID-19 pandemic. The research project, developed in collaboration with Outset England, Jupiter Woods, Italian Embassy in Tokyo, and ICA Milan, was awarded the Italian Council X grant for the artists’ international research issued by the Italian Ministry of Culture (DGCC).
The project starts practically and symbolically from the Ministry of Loneliness in the United Kingdom, a ministry appointed in 2018 to tackle social and health problems related to loneliness, and replicated in Canada and Japan in 2021 to battle the increasing suicide rates aggravated by social isolation and the pandemic crisis. By visiting the parliamentary archives, investigating scientific and fictional literature addressing loneliness, collecting personal testimonies, and participating in several groups and initiatives currently combating loneliness at various social and political levels, Rebecca Moccia has been gathering research on the subject since February 2022. The research project will culminate in a publication and exhibition at ICA Milan in 2023.