The installation centres around the myth of the social contract. The social contract has long served as a foundational fiction to justify state authority, an imagined agreement through which citizens consented to give up some of their freedoms and submit to the authority of the state in exchange for protection of their remaining rights and the maintenance of social order.
The project is a reworking of the myth using a new symbolism to twist its logic and reframe it by adding another layer to the relationship between the state and the citizen: guilt. Guilt here is explored not just as a psychological state, but as a political tool, a weapon used to induce individuals to internalise their own lack within the social contract relationship. Through guilt, the notion of a moral and civic debt that the individual owes to the state is reinforced, putting forward a debt that is structurally unpayable.
𝑃̲ℎ̲𝑜̲𝑡̲𝑜̲𝑔̲𝑟̲𝑎̲𝑝̲ℎ̲𝑠̲ 6,7,8, 21, 24,25, 30, 31, 32 𝑏̲𝑦̲ Riccardo Giancola