Triskele & The Monster’s Tools: A Solstice Invocation of Medusa Consciousness
6 minute short film
2023
Video, digital animation, original sound (by Ash Capachione), public ritual (collaboration between Maria Molteni, Vin Caponigro and Laura Campagna), hand painted ground work (by Maria Molteni)
This experimental video artwork/ short film features a collaborative ritual performed atop Molteni’s public artwork “Gateway to Infinity (An Anti-monument)” complete with original sound and animation by multimedia artist Ash Capachione.
On the Summer Solstice, Maria Molteni and non-binary Italian American collaborators Vin Caponigro, Laura Campagna, Ash Capachione welcomed visitors to a public ritual upon the newly finished painted artwork, a spiraling labyrinth representing non-dual, cyclical expansion. Three Gorgons (Molteni, Caponigro, and Ganci), united by a lunar Priestess (Campagna), journey to the center, an Anti-monument, to invoke the spirit of Medusa Consciousness and the emerging awareness that recent reflections on her myth have reawakened.
Guests were invited to participate via printed paper talismans, a collective movement ritual, and personal family heirlooms (physical or conceptualized). Together they called upon the beaming sun, salty ocean, and three conjunction planetary bodies – the Moon, Venus, and Mars – to aid in a regenerative alchemical process. On this longest day, our inherited artifacts transformed via frameworks of “The Master’s Tools” (an influential concept of Audre Lorde) into the “Monster’s Tools” (offered by thinkers such as Ece Canli). By the fire of the Summer Solstice, we forged new tools and paths for the future from the melted refuse of the Masters’ instrumentation. Centering reclaimed narratives of Monsterized, Othered beings, we wish to restore connections of the mind and heart, land and sea. Our aim is to welcome a fully embodied Medusa into the space left vacant by the heartless, beheaded Boston Christopher Columbus monument.
Learn more about Gateway to Infinity and its accompanying publication “Medusa ~ Myth, Memory, Anti-Monument” here: mariamolteni.com/gateway-to-infinity-an-antimonument
Maria Molteni (they/them, b. 1983 Nashville, TN) is a queer interdisciplinary artist, mystic, organizer and educator based in Boston since 2002. Formally trained in painting, printmaking and dance, their practice has expanded to incorporate research, social magic, ritual performance, and play-based collaboration. Molteni works in a variety of media–from inflatable textile to found-object sculpture, painting to publication, movement to video. They choose media per its ability to intersect conceptual rigor, formal poignancy and spiritual depth. Most known for their monumental, site-specific hand painted groundworks (often basketball courts), which they call altars to the sky, shape-shifting labyrinths and horizontal monuments, Molteni and their work make a bold contribution to national movements of embodied, accessible public art.
Molteni’s membership of the Boston Rowing Center ties into their work about Sirens, sea monsters and ocean/island lore, significantly anchoring 20 years of practice in Massachusetts. They have also participated in grassroots Boston initiatives including New Craft Artists in Action (Founder + Team Captain), Occupy Boston, Boston LGBTQIA Artist Alliance, Design Studio for Social Intervention, Common Field, Danza Organica ensemble, Midway Artist Studios.
Molteni has exhibited at numerous galleries and museums as well as basements, meadows, sidewalks and seascapes across the globe. More formal institutions include The Momentary Contemporary Art Museum (Bentonville, AK), MFA & ICA Boston (MA), Project Rowhouses (Houston, TX), Den Frei Contemporary Art Center (Copenhagen, Denmark), Harvard University’s Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts (MA), NGBK (Berlin), Fruitlands Museum (Harvard, MA), Museum of Design (Atlanta, GA), Conduit Gallery (Dallas, TX), Flower Head (LA, CA), Fuller Craft Museum (Brockton, MA), Fitchburg Art Museum (Fitchburg, MA), Space Gallery (Portland, ME), BAK (Utrecht, Netherlands), A Plus A (Venice, IT), SLOMA (CA). They have completed residencies at Canterbury Shaker Village (New Hampshire), Heima (Iceland), Haystack (Maine), Elsewhere (Greensboro, NC), Queer Sport Split (Croatia), Platteforum (Denver, CO), Facebook HQ, to name a few. In 2016 their NCAA artist collective (New Craft Artists in Action) was invited to present their work on Capitol Hill to the Congressional Makers and STEAM Caucuses. www.mariamolteni.com
Ash Capachione (they/them) aka HELIXHAND is a motion designer, filmmaker and audio visual artist. They began recording found sounds, noise and experimental electronic music in their hometown of Boston, MA after finding sonic influence in New England’s sacred and haunted spaces. Capachione explores themes of queer identity and vulnerability, and revisions spiritual connectivity, ritual and folklore via an audiovisual practice. They perform and improvise live with computer-based and hardware electronics, machine generated video and composite, animation and live action video.
Capachione’s works in motion design, sound and video have been performed and exhibited at the Institute of Contemporary Art (Boston), the Museum of Fine Arts (Boston), the Museum of Science and Technology (Boston), Anthony Greaney Contemporary Art Gallery (Boston), Museum of Museums (Seattle), SEASON Gallery (Seattle), San Diego Art Institute (San Diego), A Ship In the Woods (San Diego), SXSW, Decibel Fest, and Discwoman Fest.
Vin Caponigro (they/them) is an interdisciplinary artist who blends accessible and egalitarian concepts with ritual and performance to explore ideas of restriction and reproduction through writing, performance, and the creation of multiples. Caponigro’s research includes how those in power have used storytelling and reproducible media to control history, and how marginalized communities have used independent publishing to tell their own stories and fight back against oppressive systems.
Before its dissolution in 2017, Caponigro was a founding member of the non-anonymous W.I.T.C.H. Chicago. Caponigro frequently facilitates workshops and speaks on panels, recently at Harvard University, the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Emerson College, the University of Kentucky, Oberlin College, and NYU Florence. They have facilitated numerous participatory performances, recently at Spaceus: Harvard Square, the Cincinnati Art Book Fair, the Future in Minneapolis, and in Boston Common. Caponigro has attended residencies in Estonia, Sicily, and the United States, including Zygote Press, ACRE, the Wassaic Project, and the Women’s Studio Workshop. In addition to solo exhibitions in Chicago and Baltimore, Caponigro’s work has been included in two-person and group exhibitions at the Chicago Cultural Center, Beverly Art Center, the Highland Park Art Center, the Chicago Artist Coalition, and the Nemeth Art Center.
Caponigro currently lives and works on occupied Massachusett and Wampanoag land, where they operate Snake Hair, an independent publisher of zines and ritual multiples.
Laura Campagna is a healer, artist, and educator who has been reading tarot and studying astrology since she was 13 years old. Her readings are intuitively crafted for each individual and informed by feminist interpretations of ancient mythology.
Born and raised in Boston, MA. Laura is a Reiki Master and is trained in a number of powerful energetic healing modalities including VortexHealing® Divine Magic Energy in the Merlin Lineage. She is a Steering Committee member of the Association for Astrological Networking (AFAN), and co-chair of the Education Committee. Laura is the co-creator of Pagan Baby: A Kids Guide to the Cosmos with artist Catherine Please.
Laura holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Emerson College where she taught in the First Year Writing Program. She received her BA in Gender Studies from Antioch College where she studied the effects of the witch burnings on the modern day pagan community in Europe. She worked in social justice advocacy for many years, and taught Cultural Studies at Prescott College in Arizona, before devoting herself full time to healing and magic. Laura has presented on intersectional feminism, astrology, and witchcraft at Arizona State University, Mt. Holyoke College, Northeastern University, and University of Wisconsin Eau Claire.
www.lauracampagnaastrology.com
@Helixhand @Strega_Maria @Vincaponigro @LauraCampagna
17 Days Video Series 