"U Scantu": A Disorderly Tale

Elisa Giardina Papa's first UK solo exhibition, '"U Scantu": A Disorderly Tale' explores the Sicilian myth of the ‘donne di fora'. 

Magical yet vengeful; feminine yet masculine; human yet animal: the ‘donne di fora’ are difficult to categorise. ‘Women from the outside and beside themselves’, whose healing rituals were known to alleviate ‘u scantu’ – fear – but whose patients could sometimes awaken with monstrous duck feet or long disorderly braids.

Sicilian artist Elisa Giardina Papa reimagines the ‘donne di fora’ as teenage joy-riders, who cycle through a seemingly abandoned urban landscape on bikes customised with booming sound systems.

The exhibition brings together ceramic sculptures, a large-scale video installation (12 mins) and poetic text.