Casa Futura, Olimpia Zagnoli, 2015 – ongoing
https://www.instagram.com/casafutura/ – https://www.olimpiazagnoli.com/
How was Casa Futura born?
I have been looking for a house to buy in Milan for about three years. I have visited many houses and read thousands of announcements. Every time I see something I take a picture or make a screenshot in order to remember, and I realized that I had accumulated a large amount of these uninhabited scenarios – floating between death and new life – so I thought to collect them all on an Instagram profile called Casa Futura.
What kind of emotions do you think are connected to the process of house hunting? Do you think the project may have some cathartic function?
The house is surely an excuse. It is a projection, a mirage. Thinking of finding a place to suddenly fall in love with, but also having the constancy of caring and living with it every day. It is almost a utopia.
Many of the pictures you published depict the peculiar signs or the micro-stories of past owners. How would you motivate this choice?
I do not particularly believe in ghosts or otherworldly energies, but I think people’s stories are always curious. Whenever I enter a house I like to look around, read the titles of the books on the bedside tables, sense the owners’ taste from the bathroom tiles and similar things. I believe that through his silent pictures Casa Futura suggests stories.
How much influence do you think the house has in the process of forming one’s identity?
I would like to be able to say a lot, but in reality I still do not know because until now I have always rented and I have never felt my house as something that really belonged to me. It may also be for this reason that I can not wait to find one. But then, when I’m close to it, I hesitate because it fundamentally represents an opportunity to reflect on oneself.
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