Born in 1979, Raffaele Fiorella lives and works in Barletta (Bari), where he teaches at the Academy of Fine Arts. He works in different media, including installation, video, and sculpture. Between poetry and ordinary life, his work appears as a subtle, sophisticated game of contradictions. His art tells about transitory moments, fragments of real or unreal life, recreating places of memory and illusion that escape from objective spaces to find shelter in a different world, remembered or perhaps simulated.
Raffaele presented in Cairo Evidence of a Long Wait, a series of tiny clay figurines, many of which were placed on houses and monuments of the Qaitbey area and who are the ghosts of his mind. These are benevolent spirits, full of hope, intent on bring happiness. Cairo Reflections present clay sculptures of a minaret and a Cairene cat that incorporated materials used by the local craftsmen. Another installation, an over-sized kite inscribed with dreams and wishes of the local children, was directly inspired by the children of the area, whose favourite pastime is flying elaborate kites they make themselves. He entitled this work: Big Dreamers.
The residency of Raffaele Fiorella in Cairo as part of a programme run by ARCHiNOS A r c h i t e c t u r e was supported by the Italian Institute in Cairo in conjunction with the I martedi critici initiative
