Ballons are not what they seem
and it was all an inside joke
Clusters of colorful balloons are usually used to bestow a merry atmosphere to the background.
Almost everyone likes them.
You maybe wouldn’t expect to find a Rebellion script on party ballons, as the meaning of Rebellion and Struggle are not not frequently associated with frivolity.
In reality, the installation I conceived for Fondazione Feltrinelli was a parody.
Its meaning conceal a subtle mockery : balloons silkscreened with catchy, promotional kind of phrases mimic the language of commercial gadgets at fast food restaurants or office parties.
Within the context of the Voices & Borders Festival, Happy Rebellion balloons wanted to accent the consumerist attitude behind the frenetic and compulsive production of cool Milanese cultural events characterized by conformism, superficiality and absence of content, instead of the “sparking reflection spaces” they claim to be.
The core of the whole installation consisted in giving away to the audience a mass-produced gadget as a consumer good fetish, which is a manner to materially and metaphorically representing
the approach to urban social life deeply rooted in the gentrified culture, which fosters overproduction and exploitation.
In other words, ballons make fun of the social attitude of ticking off to the to-do-list of socialite agendas filled with events to attend where art and artists are highly exploited.
Happy Rebellion therefore wants to accents how the "cultural change" that these events claim to activate actually promotes a convenient, self-righteous and moralist version of the real change we need.
The balloon plays the equivalent to :
go to next trending event in town > done ✅
I was there and I consumed
The concept of Nice Rebellion
Specifically for this Festival occasion, the meaning of Happy Rebellion,
unlike the previous namesake project, indicates a sort of docile invitation to a cute and polite riot, namely, a nice rebellion.
Nice means approriate, virtuous, respectable,
implies averageness, conformity, no disturbance.
This term accompanied by rebellion discourages and mitigates the disruptive power of the strong lingusitic connotation of struggling and rising up.
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