Segnacoli

Stella Orlandino presents Segnacoli: a self-produced collection of ceramic vases born from formal research on the funeral trousseaus of the first Italian master of Attic red-figure ceramics of the 5th century BC, the Pisticci Painter. A visual investigation with contemporary traits and chromatic palettes, closely linked to the traditional decorations of Italian potters. From the words of the ghost of Patroclus, who in a dream urges his friend Achilles to bury him as soon as possible in order to allow him to enter the afterlife, thus putting an end to his painful condition of suspension between two worlds, a personal reflection on apotropaic objects linked to burials begins. The rituals associated with the artefacts that accompanied the deceased to Hades were of fundamental importance. These rituals allowed the ‘psyché’, the invisible part that accompanied the body during life and which exited the mouth at the moment of death, to reach Hades only if the deceased had been properly buried. Without a proper burial, the deceased could not have reached his or her final destination. In the burials at the time of the Magna Graecia, the Segnacoli were a fundamental part of the funerary equipment: they contained oils, ointments and lustral waters, objects imbued with suggestions, presences and memories of the place, a point of contact between the divine and the human. Nestoris Round vase decorated in red mottled, it served as a grave decoration for women of high rank or social position. Lekythos Vase with an elongated body with a single handle and wide flared rim, made of blue mott.