Wicked Nursery was a site response at Neapoli Wine Bar in Melbourne's CBD as part of the Neapoli ArtBar Series.
From the catalogue:
Vittoria Di Stefano’s research centres on material investigation as a method for examining notions of liminality in sculptural practice. She employs temporal, marginal and contingent processes to investigate a range of materials as a means to explore the alchemical and transformational properties of the sculptural object.
As well as traditional sculptural materials she employs substances associated with the transformation of the body such as wax, soap and lipstick, and considers the forces of attraction and repulsion through the inclusion of magnets and rubber cable in the work.
For Wicked Nursery, the artist responds to the site’s history and function, considering it a space of desire. She interrogates the complex nature of these desires - for food, for titillation, for glamour and for pleasure - through an assembly of part objects. The resulting installation invokes an ambiguous, in-between space of incoherent memories, confused cravings and private encounters.