Sabrina D’Alessandro

«Giving things their (ancient) name is a way of seeing them better».

In 2009 Sabrina D’Alessandro founded URPS, the acronym for Ufficio Resurrezione Parole Smarrite (Office for the Resurrection of Lost Words), an organisation for recovering «words which had been lost despite being very useful for life on earth».

The activity of this revolutionary office consists of restoring to our memory rare or otherwise forgotten words, transforming them into videos, sculptures, installations, actions. The URPS is structured according to an organigram whereby each department has its specific tasks and aims. The Dipartimento Rinascita Psicovocale (Department of Psychovocal Revival) has the task of giving expression to the sounds of the words; the Divisione Mutoparlante (Silent-Speaking Division) deals with non-verbal expression, the Area Personificazioni (Personification Area) instead brings words back to life via portraits of personality.

One of the fundamental principles is to «objectify in order to remember». This means «giving words a physical bulk so that (verba volant) they no longer fly».

For Sabrina D’Alessandro, contributing to safeguarding the richness of language is one of the aims of the enterprise, but the final goal is «a desire for a generalised rebirth which uses ancient words to achieve a new way of reading or reinventing reality».

All the words present in the works of the artist Sabrina D’Alessandro are the fruit of lexicographical research done by her over the years. This research has also produced two books published by Rizzoli, Il Libro delle Parole Altrimenti Smarrite (The Book of Otherwise Lost Words, 2011) and Accendipensieri (Thought-lighter, 2021).

Biographical notes
The work of Sabrina D’Alessandro (Milan, 1975) explores the relationship between words and images, combining art and linguistics. In 2009, she founded URPS Office for the Resurrection of Lost Words: “Organisation for recovering words which had been lost despite being very useful for life on earth”. Her work, which is listed in the Enciclopedia Treccani, has been exhibited in public and private places of art and culture in Italy and abroad, and published by Rizzoli (Accendipensieri, 2021 and  Il Libro delle Parole Altrimenti Smarrite, 2011), Domenica del Sole24Ore (Dipartimento Parole Imparavolate, 2016-2017), Sky Arte (Divisione Mutoparlante, 2016).

In 2018, she was awarded the Premio Suzzara for her public art works Parole al balcone and Fannònnola. Since 2016, she has been conducting a census on human defects in the form of an itinerant installation, hosted by various Italian and European towns, including St. Petersburg on the occasion of the 16^th week of La Lingua Italiana nel Mondo. In 2020, two of her works entered the Farnesina Collection and the Treccani portal dedicated a special report to the work of the Ufficio Resurrezione, analysing its various fields of action (lexicographical research, staging of words through visual works of art and performances, publications and didactic projects in collaboration with museums).

http://sabrinadalessandro.com    www.ufficioresurrezione.com