MY HOSTS
ELIANE ZINNER – 2022
The work “My Guests” is an installation composed of large structures, made with trees felled by the wind or uprooted by man, turned upside down in space and wrapped in netting and wool from local sheep shorn in the days before the work was created. Fascination and fear are the feelings that these characters evoke, who, just like nature, appear familiar to us at times and sometimes disturbing and mysterious.
The work recalls some archetypal figures: observing the installation it is possible to imagine demons, heroes and heroines, dancers or magical and surreal creatures like those of fairy tales or folk tradition.
Eliane Zinner, through this installation, wants to reflect on the double meaning of the term Hospes, guest, which originally referred to the “master of the house”, or the one who gives hospitality to the stranger, but which over time has taken on the meaning of the person who is welcomed. The visitor, crossing this part of the woods, may therefore ask himself who, in this case, is really the guest and the host, the welcomed or the master of the house.