Maria Iorio+Raphaël Cuomo

"Twisted Realism” is a body of interconnected works, which includes a feature-length video, photographs, collected documents and vintage objects presented in an architectural display. The project takes Pasolini's film "Mamma Roma” (1962) as a starting point to research the intertwined histories of urbanisation, migration and cinema in the period of "economic miracle” in Italy. Bringing together film archive material and individual memories, "Twisted Realism” investigates the forms and conditions of "a new life” through the process of modernisation that Pasolini addressed in his film - and also the current status of Pasolini's film itself, recently restored and commercialised in a digital form. "Twisted Realism” manifests how the Italian art cinema of the 1960s has been commodified in a process of privatisation of culture and monopolisation of the mediascape, as well as how it has been appropriated for writing a unifying version of national history.