Benedetta Casagrande- Wet Dream
I am an Italian, UK-trained artist, writer and curator. My artistic practice broadly explores female-hood, memory, and the relationship between desire, loss and photography. I am interested in the relationship between the sacred and the erotic and how this shaped our understanding of female sexuality, particularly in the Western world. My work often finds literature at its source, but nonetheless I work with an instinctive, raw, hands-on approach. Processes are particularly important in the making of my projects. Through the use of embroidery, alternative printing methods and sculpture I dig my hands straight through the surface of the work I make. The hands-on approach brings back the photograph in the world of objects, making the photograph palpable.
This series, "Wet Dream" (2016), has been put together through an exploration of my photographic archive. These were motherless images which did not belong to any specific project, but which were dear to my heart. Through a deeper observation connections between the images and narratives began to emerge. "Wet Dream" is an erotic and exotic surreal travel into female eroticism composed by humid landscapes, oriental markets and female bodies. Overall it is a collection of the visual references which compose my personal, internal erotic landscape. The images and feelings I have been exposed to since an early age - from orientalist paintings to the alluring, overtaking power of nature - shaped my erotic sphere an imaginary. The use of free-associative text is fundamental in the construction of a fluid narrative and to help the audience build the connections between images.
This series is also an attempt to shape visually a certain female erotic imaginary which is pretty much absent in the western world.