Giada Rotundo
I left you a note and then found it in the recycling
Leave a note to say when you’ll be home or if you’ll be home or if the dishwasher is clean or if you’re not sure how to feel. You should always leave a note. I am never sure how to feel. How incredible to be in a field where I can hardly explain what it is I do or why. Yet making art, making self-indulgent, highly personal, abstract art, is embarrassing to explain. Shameful to admit. Because these explanations are hard for me and perhaps because I like attention and most definitely because I am insecure about not being interesting, I made a list of questions to ask myself and then have my partner ask me. Among them are “What did you make today?” “Who did you make it for?” and “Is anything in particular making you sad or happy today?” It is a grounding, pseudo-expression of love. I wish I was in love with someone willing to unconditionally play these games with me; someone sturdier. Like a lobster or a firefighter. He has said to me that sometimes he doesn’t want to explain why he loves me and just say he loves me. But that is the crux of my Whole Deal. Every time I answer those questions and every time I leave a note I am feeding pieces back into a system of self-construction. I look at you looking at me. You could chalk it up to love languages. But I think it has to do with feeling comfortable as a part of this world. Knowledge production—presumed to be primarily the business of big fancy academics like you—is productive and destructive. Someone told me that specific knowledges do specific things. This is more about epistemic humility and the kind of ontologies academia favors (spoiler: European, male, limited in their possibilities of other worlds, things that would make you comfortable). But to bring it back to the relevant conundrum and why I am mad that you threw away my note: your (everyone’s) knowledge of me makes me less me and more me. This is scary and also important. I leave sticky notes all over in hopes that you might come to an answer, not the answer, on your own. There is the grocery list I left on the bus, the ticket stub with my rating of the film in an empty locker, lots of unassuming ballpoint graffiti. I want you to be an unreliable narrator with me and give those explanations a go, knowing full well that research often undoes itself. I have a sort of superpower to attract strangers. I dream that this is related to my habit of small public interventions. It doesn’t happen in a sexy, intriguing sort of way. I get asked for directions in every city I’ve ever visited. People in laundromats have me watch their stuff or their children. Performances requiring audience participation always find me and I never look for them. Greenpeace loves me and is disappointed in me. I have a soft or approachable face, maybe. Or maybe people have found the notes I have left. I hope it’s this. Love notes, notes in library books, or small post-it polls like the one I left for you:
▢ OK
▢ ok
▢ O.K.
▢ Okay
▢ Oh, kay
How do I look today? Please advise.
Alexis Javellana Hill is a visual artist, sometimes also with words. She works with paper, fabric, and ink, and is trained as a printmaker. Alexis is currently an MFA candidate at the Rhode Island School of Design. She is interested in paper ephemera, craft theory and the possibilities of collaborative visual discovery.
Giada Rotundo lives and works near Milan, Italy. She has collaborated with the Visioni Altre Gallery, Atelie22, Pepita Ramone Space, Open Space Art Living, Metodo Milano Artist-run Space, Tirabasso Gallery, Passepartout Unconventional Gallery, Artepassante Project, Benjamin Mac Gallery, Tail Online Gallery and Galleriazro. www.giada.atwebpages.com