In the Jungle
Mirrors for
Barbini Specchi Veneziani
2022
For thousands of years, humans have carved their civilised habitat outside the setting of nature. Wilderness is nature in the absence of humankind. We have all experienced the state of the wilderness: a tract of land without paths, the dense forest's darkness, the roar of wild animals. To lose the wild is to lose that quality which makes us most human. In mankind, the desire to be restored to a primitive state of nature is as ancient as civilisation.
With her Jungle, Trevisan presents wilderness as a beautifully arranged herbarium: leaf upon leaf, one blade of grass beside the next. In Pond, perception is vertical, and the horizon is inverted. The leaves fill the mirror, making it an impenetrable wall and becoming the basis of the composition, repeated, varied, aligned, and piled up. The plants grow in rough conditions In the Jungle, exposed to rain and buffeted by the wind. Where beautiful water lilies flower in the pond, a Mayfly nymph spreads her shimmering legs. Mayfly looks fantastic, a true sci-fi movie mirror with claws, translucent and spotted legs, bulging eyes and three long, thrashing tails. Nestled back among the growth, two monkeys face us. The Lemur is hidden in foliage save for a blazing set of eyes. Large, lush flowers with dark petals grow above the Gorilla; it stares at us, wearing an odd expression.
The In the Jungle collection restores humans to a state of nature. Mirroring ourselves In the Jungle, we become an extension of wildlife and wildlife becomes an extension of our body. And here's the primitive state!
The collection is a splendid symphony in green composed of peppermint, emerald and lemon-lime green shades, so fresh and unique that the spectacle verges on the sublime. Mirrors are composed of shaped glass cutouts, bevelled, etched and silvered by hand, finished with Murano glass floral decorations handmade in the furnace and coloured plates of fused glass that were later carved, shaped and silvered. The enormous potential of Murano glass is revealed in the extraordinary technical and aesthetic characteristics of the Mayfly and Pond mirrors. The alternation of mirrors and colourful glass produces innumerable effects of shadows and lights that whisk us away into the forest's mysterious sensory density.
Lemur, Gorilla and Pond were presented on the 1st edition of The Italian Glass Week during the exhibition VOLUBILIS curated by Barbini Specchi Veneziani and Babau Bureau at Palazzo da Mula in Murano from September 6th to 25th, 2022. Mayfly was launched during the following Milan Design Week for the Fuori Salone 2023 in Alcova, in the former slaughterhouse via Molise 62, as part of the exhibition BACK TO THE FUTURE project by Arch. Michele Levati. Alcova 2023 took place from 17 to April 23rd 2023.
Process
Monkeys are the protagonists of In the Jungle's creative universe, an iconic and ironic element Trevisan used to explore something more human. Humans adorn their bodies with ornaments ranging from diamond earrings to tattoos. Great apes, too, in nature drape themselves with objects, usually vegetation, rarely animal skin, or even whole dead animals.
The first time Trevisan saw a mayfly nymph, she was amazed by what she saw: the hues vivid and fresh, the patterns evolving and converging, the gills leaf-like in shape — here was the perfect subject for a Barbini mirror. Mayflies come in incredibly vibrant colours, looking like aliens from another planet. That's how Trevisan ended up falling in love with mayflies. But she is not alone.
Mayflies have inspired wonder by artists and poets since Mesopotamian. Near the peak of the Renaissance, Albrecht Dürer made an engraving called "The Holy Family with the Mayfly." The insect is sitting at the feet of the Virgin Mary.
Rainforest is home to the highest biodiversity of mayflies, the oldest surviving aquatic insects on the planet. They live around unpolluted wetlands such as ponds and rivers, which explains why they are among nature's best indicators of good water quality. Unfortunately, the persistent environmental changes due to human pressure threaten this diversity, and mayflies are fading. Since mayflies are a mainstay of the world's many food chains, their widespread decline threatens to cause a catastrophic collapse of nature's ecosystems. The fates of humans and insects are intertwined. Conservation efforts that tended to focus on mammals and birds in the past must no longer neglect insects such as mayflies. Within the In the Jungle collection, Mayfly enhances the poignant beauty of fragile things and affirms wilderness deserves protection.
To distil all those sentiments visually, Trevisan created mirrors that revel in the natural beauty of their compositions and evoke great paintings such as Henri Rousseau's "The Hungry Lion Throws Itself on the Antelope", part of her DNA as an artist.