Patrick Tuttofuoco’s work explores forms and treats time as a ‘human experience’ rather than a pre-established scientific quantity. During the three-day workshop at Manifattura Tabacchi with the six artists-in-residence participating in L’Armonia, the shapes and content of the new project ‘fontana urbana’ (urban fountain) were outlined. Fontana Urbana will be a site-specific work located in the centre of Piazza dell’Orologio at Manifattura Tabacchi. 

The location’s history tells stories of work, women, sharing, and time articulated by the clock after which the piazza is named. It is a way of creating a bond with the space’s past, to narrate through art a story which might otherwise be forgotten.

Often, cyclicity is represented by water, as it articulates time. In this case, it takes the form of Uroboro: a symbol that can be found in many different civilisations. Apparently immobile, but in perpetual motion, Uroboro represents a power which consumes and regenerates itself, the universal energy which is continually used up and renovated, the cyclical nature of things, symbolic of unity and, in this case, harmony, as in the act of artistic creation.