Opera viva

Designed for Villa Mondolfo’s wet dock, this site-specific work is entitled with an Italian nautical term: Opera viva is, in fact, the part of a boat’s hull situated below the waterline, while opera morta is the part above. At the centre of the installation, the rod that separates the words opera viva from opera morta is fixed to the side-walls of the wet dock at a height of 120 centimetres above hydrometric zero, the measurement that demarcates the flood stage of Lake Como and corresponds to its flood-risk level in Piazza Cavour in Como itself. The words Opera morta are always exposed to the view, never lapped by the water, whereas the words Opera viva, situated where the water level rises and falls, are totally visible in certain periods of the year, but are partially or completely submerged when the lake floods Piazza Cavour.