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# Shadows and Presence
- URL: https://arts-of-the-working-class.ghost.io/text/shadows-and-presence/
- Published: 2026-09-10T13:36:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-13T13:46:05.000Z
- Description: A conversation with Mariuccia Secol.
- Author: María Inés Plaza Lazo
- Tags: Q&As, Art

*Since the 70s, Mariuccia Secol’s practice has explored women’s labor, care, and forms of resistance to patriarchy. In this conversation, she looks back on the first self-awareness groups of the 1970s, the performances of the Gruppo Immagine in Varese, and the role of refusal, silhouettes, and everyday objects. In her work, Secol weaves together politics, the ethics of care, and materiality.* 

  
**For decades, your practice has addressed the structural exclusion of women’s labor and the invisibility of care work. When did you begin to recognize these dynamics, and how have they influenced your approach to artistic practice?**

All’inizio degli anni Settanta le giovani donne del movimento studentesco si riunivano in piccoli gruppi di autocoscienza. A Varese ho iniziato a frequentarne uno, formato da una decina di studentesse universitarie. Ognuna raccontava da dove proveniva il proprio malessere e, discutendone insieme, scoprivamo molte similitudini: non avere un reddito, dover chiedere i soldi al partner, non avere autonomia, non poter uscire liberamente o prendere iniziative. Con le studentesse di medicina si praticavano anche autovisite con strumenti in plastica, diversi da quelli invasivi degli studi medici, mettendo in discussione alcune risposte della medicina. Si parlava anche delle decisioni sui figli e della gestione della casa.

Together with Milli Gandini and other artists, we then founded the feminist group Immagine in Varese. We got in touch with the Padua group advocating for “wages for domestic work,” founded by Mariarosa Dalla Costa in 1972, and contributed to their newspaper *Le operaie della casa* with stories, photographs of performances, and a large poster on canvas bearing the phrase: “Love, too, is domestic work.”

In January 1978, we organized the national conference “Donna Arte Società” in Milan, with 700 participants. As a group, we wrote the document *Vogliamo-Vo(G)liamo*, in which we explained that ours was a rebellion against a system that, by appropriating our creativity, had rendered it compliant.

My artistic work then began to focus on objects related to caregiving and domestic labor: aprons, cracked and mended plates, the pot scrubber, the bread bag. Even my personal clothes, including my wedding dress, became part of the works in the *Casa di bambola* series. The clothes are then torn to pieces and sewn back together like a tapestry, to shed their old skin and destroy the past, becoming a banner of protest.

**Next come the *Silhouettes*: female figures made of fabric created by removing some of the weft threads. These “tears” represent the pain of motherhood and what women endure in their lives. Silhouettes often appear in your work. How have they been used to explore autonomy and interdependence?**

The *Silhouettes* represent women who suffer under patriarchy and must free themselves from it. They depict various forms of female suffering, from childbirth to abortion—a right for which women have fought. But abortion is not a source of joy: it remains a source of pain in a woman’s life.

In the work *Per un bambino non nato* (1977), exhibited at the Galleria della Maddalena in Rome—founded by Dacia Maraini—a tiny baby’s dress on the mother’s red silhouette represents a tomb on her heart.

**Rejection is central to your work—from the rejection of domestic labor to resistance against institutional expectations. Could you share a moment when rejection became a deliberate artistic or political gesture for you?**

Starting with the works from the 1973 series *Casa di bambola* (Dollhouse). Through these doll-like women, I expressed the need for change regarding the futility of the female figure within the family. The dresses represent the “creativity of refusal,” drawing on Nora’s message in Ibsen’s play, which for me also meant changing my personal life.

Later, other dresses are cut up and pieced back together to form a new body—no longer a doll. This is the case with *Spogliazione* (1974), a tapestry used by the Gruppo Immagine in a performance in Arcumeggia, the “painted village,” where frescoes had been created in the 1950s by an all-male group of painters. We brought the tapestry beneath those frescoed walls, asserting a different presence.

With our hands spinning, we teased them from behind the tapestry. There was also the large cloak *Io,* which enveloped the members of the group as they sought protection.

**Many of your works transform everyday objects into ethical and political statements. How do you view the relationship between materiality, care, and the visibility of labor in your practice?**

Objects like an apron or a pot scrubber are part of everyday life. They are personal yet common objects—powerful symbols that many women perceive as tools of exploitation and domination. Torn clothing physically represents the shattering of female identity under patriarchy.

**Installations such as *Acqua Maternale* (1978) address themes of care, vulnerability, and interdependence. How can material forms convey these messages?**

They are well-known symbolic objects. Through symbolism, a relationship is created between nature and artistic expression. At the Venice Biennale, the tub containing the maternal fluid was at the center of the installation, and hanging above it were works by members of the Gruppo Immagine, which were reflected in the water.

Outside, there were panels covered with postcards featuring images of nature—forests, deserts, flowers, berries, the moon—as if to protect the basin. The work was a collective effort, but each artist maintained their own artistic vision. This, too, was the theme of the 1978 Biennale: From nature to art, from art to nature.

***Acqua Maternale* evoked obstetrics as a metaphor for your approach to work and creation. How does this principle continue today?**

Today, this principle is broader. Back then, it primarily concerned a personal dimension; today, it concerns humanity in general. While in 1978 it was about the personal pain of stretch marks, today I also think about war, migrants, and a larger social problem.

**How do refusal, care, and ecological awareness intertwine in your practice?**

Today there’s a shift. After the destruction of the past, the personal remains—such as femicide or respect for the individual—but respect for nature and animals also emerges, along with a broader sense of well-being for everyone. This means rejecting the exploitation of people as well as harmful technologies, such as phosphorus bombs. New works arise from these reflections, such as those created by reworking newspaper pages.

Reflecting on your first retrospective, what do you hope the audience will take away with them?

The awareness that a change—even if only partial—has taken place. Women’s wages are still lower than men’s, and the struggle continues. Women's determination has made some gains. Hopefully, men, too, will free themselves from the bondage of patriarchy.  
  
  
//