Ella Littwitz is participating in Una Boccata d'Arte. This contemporary art project is promoted by Fondazione Elpis in collaboration with Galleria Continua and with the participation of Threes. Every year, 20 villages throughout Italy, one for each region, welcome 20 artists, Italian and international, of different ages, backgrounds, and practices. Invited to spend a short period of residence, the artists will create 20 works related to the territory and traditions of the local communities.
In Sicily, the village of Pollina (PA) hosts the project Axis Mundi by the artist Ella Littwitz (Haifa, Israel, 1982), coordinated by Giulia Monroy and produced with the patronage of the Municipality of Pollina.
Axis Mundi is an obelisk placed in the highest location in the village, where the trigonometric point utilised to map the entire area once stood. Realized in marble and steel, the obelisk becomes an instrument to capture and express the literature of the village. The sculpture created is abstract and develops along a vertical line joining the earth to the sky; the lower part derives its shape from the “tube” of manna and folgorite, a glassy mass in cylindrical form, hollow inside, produced by the energy released by lightning on sandy ground; the upper part returns to a column, cylindrical, and points up at the sky. Like the mythological phenomenon from which it takes its name, Ella Littwitz’s sculpture Axis Mundi thus reaffirms the ontological interdependence between the plant and animal kingdoms, celestial phenomena and human beings.
Ella Littwitz explains: “For an entire day water and sky were one, the upper world was not yet separated from lower one. Horizon then was created, to separate. Axis Mundi, composed of Pollina’s stories, is reacting to the village strong connection between metaphysical and physical, between faith, geography, and nature”.
Visit Ella Littwitz's contribution in Pollina in Sicily, Italy, between 24 June and 24 September 2023. More info here.
