"i'm getting older and it's cringe af" it's the name of my first solo exhibition that held place in march 2024, in Zurich (at the toni areal).
its inception spawns from the feelings i had while moving out from my childhood house and officially out of my parents’. while packing, emptying, and moving, i had the obligation of getting confronted with reliques of my past: a meeting that transformed slowly into a conversation with my own 12-years-ago-self. 12 years ago (march 2012) is pretty symbolic in my childhood: it’s the moment where i published my (now embarrassing) first youtube video.
with "i'm getting older and it's cringe af", i take the opportunity to explore and talk with myself, and i try to include the viewer in the process, for example by showing a video where a 2024 version of me reacts to my first video directly on the other side of the room of a screen with my first upload, trapping the viewer into the conversation. or remaking a drawing of my class (where everyone says something characteristic about themselves) after 12 years facing an original one.
![every time i have [...] since march 12, 2012](https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53836970488_f1d48afe54_c.jpg)
another side of the exhibition takes an opportunity to talk about the past in general, for example with pieces like “all the times that i broke the roles since march 14, 2012” and “all the times that i cried since march 14”, which both take a very personal themes and an entertaining difference in size (with the first being a stack of paper of more or less 500 pages, while the second only one page). other pieces like “today i'm emptying my childhood room” discuss the unstableness of life through moving out of a house with poetry and the help of childhood images; or also with a video “a different self”, which acts as the introduction to the exhibition and narrates of the feeling of alienation compared to the past self, with specific references to items i have found in the back of my closet which were important to me as a kid.
the exhibition also features a set of 4 paintings, painted on the bases of my own childhood closet. they represent my relationship with my past self past using the 5 basic emotions: happiness, sadness, fear, anger, and disgust.
happiness is linked with “an ode to all the homework i never made”, a happy remembering of the times where i did not follow the rules.
sadness touches on a personal story, painted in “if i could go back in time i would stop my mother from crying”, which despite its themes does still feature warm colours.
i touch on fear with “what do you want to do when you grow up”, an artwork where i show myself talking about my uncertainties as a developing artist, painting about my impostor syndrome while using experimental techniques, such as writing on cellophane “you will never know what you are going to be when you grow up” (which will deteriorate afer every sentence repeated).
and lastly i talk about disgust and anger with “the bullies were right”, where i acknowledge the weaknesses of my past self, drawing me (from my first video) in a derogatory way with the text “the bullies were right” in a mocking red cursive.
the exhibition featured also my own diaries from when i was a kid, where i talk in detail about my day (with excruciating detail, for example detailing all my meals).