Towards
Empathy
A visual exploration of empathy through psychological portraiture,
chromatic translation, and salt crystals grown on photographic textiles.
2021 — ongoing
Concept
visual poem meant to stimulate
the viewer both emotionally and intellectually.
Towards Empathy is a visual research project that combines
psychology and photography. At its core is the question: how can subtle,
immaterial elements — empathy, emotion, the interior life of another —
be conveyed and materialized through the photographic medium?
The work seeks to establish a connection with human subjects through
a process of psychological portraiture, then transforms those images
into sculptural objects. Salt crystals, grown directly on photographic
prints on textile, become the medium through which the duality of
emotion is made tangible.
To talk about empathy is a political act — emotions play a political
role by working on people’s sensitivity and opening oneself to
otherness, even the monstrosity of emotions.
The Three-Part Process
The Human Encounter
A suspended, meditative portrait session in which the subject’s
soul is invited to express itself. Feelings are experienced and
shared between artist and subject — a deeply intimate exchange
that forms the raw material of everything that follows.
Chromatic Translation
Each person is synesthetically interpreted and rendered into
a specific color that intuitively evokes their spirit. Using
color filter gelatines, Alessandra composes a “chromatic portrait”
— a psychological reading made visible. An intuitive yet precise act.
Crystal Formation
Salt — complex and dual, capable of nourishing and destroying —
is grown directly onto photographic prints on textile. The resulting
crystals monstrify the image, materializing the intangibility of
emotion into a sculptural, luminous, unique piece.
Chromatic Portraits
Each colour is a
human encounter.
Color gelatines translate the person’s inner world into a chromatic
field — an abstract portrait that carries the psychological essence
of the subject. No two colours are the same. No two encounters are the same.
Salt as material metaphor
Salt is a dual substance — it preserves and destroys, nourishes and
corrupts. These contradictions mirror the nature of emotion itself.
Applied to photographic prints on textile and left to crystallize,
salt transforms the flat image into a living, breathing object.
“The crystals are capable of materializing the duality of emotions.”
Each crystallized piece is unique. The growth process is uncontrolled,
alive — the artist sets the conditions, but nature completes the work.
In reaction to light, the materiality of the salt crystals becomes
extremely vivid, shifting and shimmering as the viewer moves.
Contained within plexiglass boxes measuring 30×40 to 45×55cm,
each sculpture is at once intimate and monumental — a window
into another person’s interior world.
“Talking about empathy and emotions becomes a political act of expression —
because I believe that emotions can play a political role
by working on people’s sensitivity.”
— Alessandra Carosi
Selected Exhibitions
2021
Towards Empathy
Solo
Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris, France
2023
Poush Manifesto
Installation
Poush, Paris — print on textile, salt crystals, plexiglass
2022
Cabinet de curiosités
LeNeuf Sinibaldi Gallery, Paris, France
2022
Nuances
La Comete bookshop gallery, Paris
Variable dimension installation · Neon light
2022
IRIDESCENCE
Performance
Poush Manifesto, Paris — with Thea Soti
Live audio composition, 15′
2023
Der Greif Guest Room
on Empathy
Selected by Damarice Amao & Matthias Pfaller, Munich
Recognition
1 thought on “Alessandra Carosi”
Comments are closed.