COLD AS YOU ARE (PUB IN LONDON) | REBECCA MOCCIA

Rebecca Moccia’s research (Naples, 1992) starts from the socio-cultural contexts surrounding her and focuses on the relationships that connect spaces, bodies, and dynamics she explores.

The project Cold as you are, of which the artwork Pub in London (2022) is a part, stems from a study on the theme of loneliness: a social condition that is increasingly widespread, also as a consequence of the recent pandemic, which has fueled situations of isolation and lack of interaction, especially physical. The problem has become, over the years, of such magnitude as to convince some countries – including the United Kingdom and Japan – to even establish a Ministry of Loneliness as an act of awareness and recognition of a pervasive and debilitating condition.
The Cold as you are project is also a denunciation of a system that tries to solve a problem it has itself created: a mechanism that aims at optimizing economic productivity from a capitalist perspective, to the detriment of the human individual’s valorization.

The project arises from a reflection, both complex and pure, on the image and the way of representing a fact or a situation and consists of a series of thermal photographs depicting places and people. In Cold as you are (Pub in London), we can observe a human figure with long hair – presumably a woman – intent on drinking what appears to be a beer, given the recognizable shape of the tankard she holds in her hand. The title of the artwork is a clear indication of the environment in which the scene takes place.

Moccia’s project arises with a structural contrast between the intention of narrating a certain theme and the way of representing it: loneliness chosen by the artist is a sensation that usually manifests with coldness, muted colors, monochromatic tones; what we see depicted by Cold as you are (Pub in London) is instead a lively, warm, flaming image. Moccia’s choice is undoubtedly a complex, perhaps cumbersome, mode of representation, but precisely for this reason, it urges the viewer to deeply reflect on what the artwork intends to convey.
Through her practice, Moccia tries to reach the soul of the viewer and shake their consciousness, aiming to find together possible answers to the social issues addressed.

Rebecca Moccia
Cold as you are (Pub in London), 2022
Thermal picture printed on Hahnemühle cotton paper, 48.3 x 32.9 cm (19 x 13 in)
Courtesy the artist, Mazzoleni London – Torino, private collection

10/04/24