Loredana Grasso's Celestial Ceramics: Na-kojd-Abad and the Search for the Imaginal Realm

In ATP Diary's 'I (never) explain' series, artist Loredana Grasso recounts the creation of her 2025 ceramic work 'Na-kojd-Abad' (Terra di Nessundove), a fired clay plate inscribed in Arabic with 'al-ālam al-mithāl' (the World of Similitudes), a concept from Islamic philosophy and Sufism describing an intermediate realm between the spiritual and physical. The work, conceived after a solo trip to Tunis, incorporates personal experiences including a childhood epiphany under a shooting star in Trapani, the loss of her nephew, and her work as a chef-stewardess on charter yachts. Grasso describes the plate as a funerary object for an imagined celestial civilization, featuring a pentera (a warship) transformed into a psychopomp deity. The piece is part of a broader series exploring symbols, ritual, memory, and immortality through an archaeological approach. Other works shown include 'Diario di bordo' (2025), 'Celeste è la mia razza' (2025), and 'L'invasata' (2025). The article includes references to the Orphic gold tablet of Petelia, the Casuccini Etruscan collection at the Museo Archeologico A. Salinas in Palermo, the Museo Palazzo Branciforte, the Louvre's reliefs from Sargon II's palace at Khorsabad, the British Museum's Phoenician warship relief from Sennacherib's palace at Nineveh, and a 19th-century Judeo-Persian manuscript of Yusuf and Zulaykha depicting Buraq. Grasso's research was further informed by visits to the Museo del Bardo in Tunis and the ceramics of Sejnane.