Lucia Rossi's Echo Chamber

“To overcome, we need audacity, yet more audacity, and always audacity.”

Georges Jacques Danton

The French Revolution of 1789-1794 sprung from the Age of Enlightenment and a revolt against hierarchy, abuse of power, and poverty. There ensued five years of a chaotic breaking down of existing systems, the fall of a monarchy, and a battle to create a more equitable constitution. Power struggles and paranoia flourished, along with many ideas that laid the foundation for some of the freedoms that we enjoy today. It was a bloodbath and a massacre on all sides, at the base of which was the fight to defend the rights of Man and Citizen.

In this series of collage works, Lucia Rossi’s use of contemporary photographic imagery and technique brings the past into the present. Using various methods of tromp l’oeil, she combines illustration from the era into three-dimensional tableaux that create a sense of movement and depth. She brings to life figures such as Maximilien Robespierre, Louis XVI, Marquis de Sade, and Olympe de Gouges, with notions of execution, virtue, reason, and the crucial “Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen”. Lucia’s treatment of this history invites us to question the significance of the epoch in relation to current day events, creating an echo chamber between past and present. The sacrifices of the revolution changed the world, but over two hundred years on, are we still fighting the same battles, and what have we learnt? Are we capable of the same audacity and valour to yet again overcome the imbalances of power and wealth, the inequalities of race and sex, and humanities propensity for violence?

About the artist

Photographic artist Lucia Rossi works with ongoing themes of body and mythology, as well as de-construction & re-construction. She often uses her self as subject within her works, using rituals of performance and choreography with her body, object and site, as well as with the medium & materials.

From 1999 Rossi spent almost a decade working plein-air in Tasmania, developing themes of body & nature mythology in relation to its Precambrian landscape. Using a visceral and intuitive response to site she positions her body as a sort of sign or hieroglyph to point towards form, or to mimic the slow-time movement of nature. Major works include Isola Corpo (2008), Cradle (2006), & Unnatural Expectations (2002).

During 2008 / 09, Lucia spent almost two years in Paris in residency at the Cité Internationale des Arts during which time she also held a lecturing position at the École Supérieure des Beaux-Arts Le Mans. Her practice was studio based and key works include Corps Caché, a response to the male and female gaze, and Film Noir, an anamorphic exploration of the body, using the surface of shiny black photographic paper as a mirror distortion.

Since 2011 Lucia has been based in Melbourne. In January 2015 she spent a month in Paris researching the French Revolution of 1789 for the collage series Echo Chamber. She has been working in conjunction with writer Vincent Hanon with a view to future publication of the works with text.

Lucia Rossi has shown work in both Australia and Paris in four solo exhibitions and numerous group exhibitions. She has been selected as finalist for a number of prizes including the National Photographic Portrait Prize (2014) and the City of Hobart Art Prize (2007). Lucia has also been awarded several residencies, and has delivered papers about her work at different events including the symposium Contesting Identities: Photography, narrative, and the self at the Ballarat International Foto Biennale (2013), and with poet Mark Tredennick at the Senses of Place Conference, Tasmanian University School of Art (2006).

• Artist's website: www.luciarossi.com.au