Ministry of Loneliness

Departing from an exploration of the Ministry of Loneliness – established in 2018 in the United Kingdom and replicated in 2021 in other countries such as Canada and Japan –Ministry of Loneliness is a multimedia installation that develops a reflection on the political and social structures that shape the emotional state of loneliness and its perception in contemporary society.

The work stems from an extensive research that the artist has carried out in different contexts including Italy, the United States, Japan, and the United Kingdom. The phantasmal and pervasive shadow of isolation that permeates Western societies takes shape in the film’s stratified investigation, extending to include the roots that trigger it – from the advance of the techno-scientific order of modern life to the rise of liberal capitalism.

The installation includes:
a multichannel non-fiction film, directly shot by Rebecca Moccia juxtaposing different materials collected during her research trips, from parliamentary archives to scientific and narrative literature, from direct and indirect experiences and testimonies; a series of thermal portraits printed on cotton paper and mounted on aluminum which give an emotional reportage of places, bodies and situations encountered during the research; 87 ceramic works that materialise and monumentalise the Loneliness Scale, a scale developed by the University of California in 1978 to assess the level of loneliness of a given subject and which is still used today by governments, utilised by the artist as a tool for public workshops held during the research.