The term "spolia" is used by architects and archeologists to describe the integration of older structural elements into new constructions for functional, political, or aesthetic reasons. This process of reuse may be likened to memory units that invade a fixed architectural structure, transforming it into a layered amalgam of new and old elements.
The works in this intimate group exhibition build upon the term "spolia" and upon the related principle of a multilayered physical and metaphorical structure, which forges a connection between distinct temporal moments. Past and present cultural expressions are arranged a single support, thus undermining a linear and hierarchical conception of space and time shaped by a single point of origin; instead, they form an arrangement of intertwining elements that frequently come undone.
The Latin term spolia is related to the word spolium, which refers to the skin stripped from an animal as well as to the spoils of war. The artistic "looting" of architectural and aesthetic units constitutes an act of appropriation based on a range of strategies: pasting, positioning, assimilating, concealing, or externalizing elements that bespeak a process of migration between different temporal moments and cultural contexts. The resulting visual disturbance, or process of visual assimilation, calls for a reading which is itself layered, and shaped by special attention to the survival of visual motifs.