Sara Cattin – Queste Oscure Materie

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Queste Oscure Materie has been a workshop journey into an unknown and viscous territory for children and young people who encountered for the first time the manipulation of the imagination that lies between the fantastical and the real, learning from their hands what they think and teaching them to imagine.

Queste Oscure Materie is also the title of Philip Pullman's fantasy trilogy whose first volume, Northern Lights, introduces the ancient concept of the daimon, or, in the novel, animals that accompany each person from birth to death, sharing thoughts, experiences and the entirety of their soul.

The project has been developed in two parallel clay manipulation workshops, in collaboration with Associazione Acmos, which in the Barriera di Milano district of Turin focuses on inclusion and creative participation, and with Area Onlus, which supports children and young people with motor disabilities and neurodivergence.

In the novel, no one knows true solitude as it is impossible to be separated from their dæmons, which change their animal form based on the context, landscape, climate, and necessity: when Lyra Belacqua, the protagonist, secretly speaks to her daimon, Pantalaimon becomes a moth, making her lip language expressions and signs intelligible; when they are in the icy northern desert, he becomes a snow cat; when he and Lyra rest, he returns to being an ermine.

Clay does not know error. Just as a daimon stabilizes itself only when it becomes an adult together with its companion, clay can be a presence capable of accompanying an almost infinite transformation.

With the children and young people of Area, we focused on the sensoriality of the material, learning simple techniques to feel the limits and potentials of our hands and the material itself. From a flat dimension, we worked towards three-dimensionality, which in therapeutic terms is defined as 'standing up.'

With the participants and operators of Acmos, we explored the concept of the imprint. From the mark of the hands, to that of the room, to the paw prints in all of Pantalaimon’s mutations. We traveled between the abstract and the figurative dimensions, where everyone introduced their own hybrid or animalistic imagination, inspired by anime, the real world, and cinema.

The two groups also worked collectively by passing materials and artifacts between them. At Area, we created the colors that were used at Acmos in the process of constructing the paws; at Acmos, we created the slab marked with lines which was used at Area to create an almost impossible-to-reassemble puzzle-landscape.

Credits:
Conceived and realized by Sara Cattin;
Consultancy: Valentina Roselli and Caterina Giansiracusa;
Assistance and documentation during workshops: Valentina Roselli, Caterina Giansiracusa and Alice Sprascio;
Technical assistance: Scuola delle Terrecotte, Ronco Biellese (BI)