Sabrina Torelli. Simpatia Cosmica; De mi amor mi canto

Picture of the prototype work exhibited at the Botanical Garden of Parma in 2008

Torelli proposed two projects for the Department of Pediatric Oncology of Sant’Orsola Hospital in Bologna: Simpatia Cosmica (Cosmic sympathy) for the communication room diagnosis (BCM), and De mi amor mi canto for the for the area where the remains rest.

The first project consisted in the creation of a series of nine to twelve large circles (60 cm diameter) representing a variety of animals that, according to the Native American medicine, are mediators that put the man in relation with the elements of nature and act on the state of equilibrium, that, if altered, causes the disease. These "crests" (mounted with an hidden frame, line drawings in black and white), would communicate in the same way of the symbols that are placed in the right part of the brain, the intuitive and creative one, and therefore, according to the artist - that here refers also to a personal care experience - open to the consciousness of the dream from which the signs of recovery are the first to emerge.

In the project description the artist explains indeed, following a conversation with the psychologist Dorella Scarponi, the emotional dynamics that involve parents during the dialogues in which doctors communicate them the diagnosis of their child. The conversation lasts approximately two hours, during which the doctors explain to the parents the diagnosis and treatment that the little patient will follow. As written by Torelli, "Communicate, try to be understood, repeat and repeat, is the great “dragon” that doctors face every time they cross that doorstep, because very little or nothing remains in memory to the family and the difficulty of understanding in an emotional state push them to repeat always the same questions" (progetto S.T.02 de mi amor mi canto.pdf).

The crests - " fathers " of nature - were intended to act as mediators, in the moment of pain, between the emotional and irrational shock and the scientific nature of medicine and care, shown by taking the hand of those in difficulty .

The project De mi amor mi canto consisted instead in the placement of a brassy sphere with a diameter of 40 cm in the area of the Department of Pediatric Oncology of the Hospital S. Orsola - Malpighi in Bologna where the corpses are kept. The ball, chosen for the values attributed to the circle shape that combines life and death and allude to the circularity of the rhythms of nature, was supposed to release from within a recording lasting three minutes of the song of a nightingale in captivity and the singing of a nightingale in freedom. The issue of communication is predominant: as the artist points out, "When it sings for itself, free in the nature, its melody is simple and spontaneous, but in captivity, when it sings for others, the sound changes, it is harmonious and varied modulated with extreme and rare delicacy. (...) A song of medicine and the medical term refers here to all those forces that have a positive effect on men" (progetto S.T.02 de mi amor mi canto.pdf). The ball was realised and exhibited as part of the exhibition at GAM in Bologna in 2004, but has never been placed in the place for which it was intended, the area of the department in which corpses rest.

The project, part of a series of works by Sabrina Torelli on the subject of non-verbal communication and the study of the language of birds, was started in 2004 and is made mainly of four works : Parable (2004), De mi amor mi canto (2004 ), Breathe and magic Flight (2004), Awakenings (2008 ) and is still ongoing.