Ricardo Meli

The work suspends time within the castle walls. The hybrid artifact, half mechanical, half organic, refuses clear definition, creating a rupture in the ordinary where new potential possible realities and futures emerge

What generally drives your artistic work?

It's hard to answer this question clearly, because for me the trigger to realize one of my artistic works is a very intuitive impulse that becomes increasingly conscious and concrete in the process. Fundamentally, I engage with the advancing process of digitalization and the resulting changes in society. Past, future, and present seem to compress into a small process space, while we stand in a constant flow of information. For example, when we constantly scroll through social media, past and future merge into an endless now.
My objects resist clear explanation and thus function as independent beings that oscillate between mechanical and organic. Many works trigger a shift in perception, creating a moment of irritation that enables new spaces of thought.
The role of the artist as producer of artifacts for a possible future, speak about our current time, evoke feelings, and enable reflection is central.
I see the role of the artist in depicting, representing, or producing culture. We are sensitive beings and I assume that in the urge to express something lies an assumption about our time, past, or future that is not fully articulated. Like birds that seek distance before an earthquake, artists are intuitive and perceiving beings to me.

Tell us about the project you exhibited at Oltre la pietra

For the exhibition "Oltre la Pietra" I brought two works from the same family of works: "Coast to Source" (2024) and the work "Turbine" (2025), created specifically for the exhibition.
"Coast to Source" deals with the fiction of a tribe that lives in the mountains and converts energy from the ground into air. The work consists of fictional tools such as spears, transformers, and an antenna. The mountains function as a mythical place. Fog, invisibility, and regional tales shape the atmosphere. The work addresses the autonomy of a society as well as the question of who owns, distributes, and controls energy, as well as conventions of design and technology. It is about the idea of a technically competent community that develops alternatives to existing technological and political structures. In the garden of Castelgrande, with a wide view into the valley, the geographical position as a potential place of power is included in the reading."Turbine" is a new work created specifically for the exhibition. As an abandoned artifact within the castle walls, it becomes an ambivalent object: on the one hand, it could have been part of the historical inventory, on the other hand an object from the future. The work takes direct reference to the surroundings, and the surroundings in turn to the work. Both give each other meaning and are interwoven with each other. The work thereby creates a rupture in our perception of reality. Such a rupture means for me a brief breaking open of the familiar, through which new perspectives and movements of thought become possible.

What have been the main challenges and discoveries in your artistic journey?

Work life balance. An honest and continuous production requires dedication. I must repeatedly realign myself with the path I want to take in order not to lose myself. No comfort in practice and no routine in the process can become exhausting, but every time I see what has emerged, I am happy.
The ritual at the beginning of a work process is central for me to even get into the mood of the work. It serves to draw from the subconscious. I believe that the technical and the spiritual do coexist.

How do you choose the materials, languages, or techniques you work with?

Through constant working, certain material tendencies have developed for me. For the works of the exhibition Oltre la Pietra I used plaster and steel. As a trained designer in mechanical engineering, I know metal very well and work confidently with it. At the same time, a certain distance arises, for example when I work in CAD or have parts laser cut. The welding and forming I then do myself.
Plaster, on the other hand, has developed over time as a material that can be worked very quickly, immediately, and directly. Like a three-dimensional canvas, I can directly give it a new form.
Steel and plaster are both extracted stones that could hardly behave more differently. This interplay of distance and proximity in the process, of interface and craft, accompanies me constantly in my work.
I also often try to encounter materials without prior knowledge. The idea of "unlearning" has already led me to surprising places.