What remains of a household waste?

Ludovica Faro
Archeologia domestica (Rainerum)
Glass vials, consumption waste, cataloguing lists
Mix-Media
2023-ongoing

Archeologia domestica (Domestic Arcehology) is an installation of glass vials, each one containing an accumulated week’s worth of everyday life consumption waste. Each object is then labelled and documented with its history in a catalogue by the artist and their partner. The work explores the intersection of personal narratives and the ephemeral nature of daily life that nonetheless physically lasts in its indexicality.
The selection process for the vials’ content is based on the relevance and recognizability of the fragments, found on the floor of the artist’s house every Wednesday evening. It is on the next day that the housecleaning staff, scheduled for Thursday, would erase any traces of the previous week. The weekly deadline sets the rhythm for the artist’s excavation and documentation. Simultaneously to the act of collecting, an accompanying list unfolds alongside the discovery of objects, providing a parallel narrative of notionistic and individual experience that lies within each residue.
This series, titled Rainerum focuses on the cohabitated experience at the homonym student dorm, in the city of Bolzano. The work delves into the contrasts of waste and treasure, drawing parallels between the ontology of remains and items of value: the artist’s exploration of a household history encapsulated in the remnants of a single week. The content of each glass vial, enclosed by the sealing tape placed on the lid, seeks to be traced and unwiredin the index.