Francesca Grilli's Sparks performance at MACTE Termoli with daughter Agata

Francesca Grilli presents Sparks 2022 at MACTE Termoli on May 7-8, 2022, a performance where her daughter Agata reads adults' palms as a transfer of power from adult to child. The work is part of the larger Sparks 2021 project developed through Italian Council, curated by Paola Tognon for Contemporary Locus, and previously shown in Rome, Bergamo, L'Aquila, Vilnius, and Flanders. The performance includes three elements: hands as exposed body parts, children's palm reading as imaginative play, and baseball cap sculptures worn to protect the oracles' gaze. Physical touch is replaced by a small torch directing adult movements, transforming pandemic distancing into a strength. Grilli explains that Sparks originated from her video Faster than Light (commissioned by Fondazione Del Monte di Bologna at Casa di riposo per artisti Lyda Borelli), where a child read an elderly person's body on screen. She has never separated her career from private life, involving her daughters in her practice. At MACTE, Agata will individually read palms for a limited group, with adults listening silently, reversing the adult-child power dynamic. Grilli notes that post-pandemic, she has not believed in online performance as a replacement for live work, and that productions made behind closed doors during the pandemic were dense and necessary. She used distancing rules to shape Sparks 2021, integrating them honestly into the work.