Anna di Rocco, RUFA student of the Photography course, created the sound design for David LaChapelle ATTI DIVINI exhibition at La Venaria Reale, Turin.
The theme of RUFA Contest 2019, the annual competition that aims to enhance and support the talent of students attending Rome University of Fine Arts in which the student participated, was “The Divine aesthetics” and as guest and president of the jury participated David LaChapelle, a famous multifaceted artist who expresses himself in the relationship with the image, transmitting his thoughts in a clear and determined way.
Anna di Rocco was selected among the 25 finalists who participated in the Masterclass with the artist and thanks to this experience she had the opportunity to exhibit and discuss her project – an audiovisual one – with David LaChapelle, who was impressed by the sound design and proposed her a collaboration.
The talent in RUFA is enhanced and promoted with the aim of offering the artists of tomorrow opportunities for visibility and expression.
Anna di Rocco tells us about her incredible experience: “At the end of the Masterclass screenings, when the games had to be over, LaChapelle and her manager Johnny Byrne came to me to ask for information about the sound of my video. I was pleasantly impressed by their unexpected interest, but convinced that their curiosity was limited to the RUFA Contest. Shortly afterwards, however, Johnny Byrne gave me an email and a phone number, asking me to contact him the next day.
I can leave to the collective imagination the mixture of feelings that I felt in understanding that something was happening, even if I was still not clear what.
That Thursday morning I heard Johnny Byrne: he arranged an appointment for the next day so that he could talk to me about the project he had in mind.
So we met, me Johnny Byrne and David LaChapelle: the thread of the speech was the presentation of the exhibition “Atti Divini” organized at the Reggia di Venaria.
But how should the project include me? They wanted me to take care of the Sound Design of the exhibition.
The directions were synthetic: the duration, a main track and the idea of a journey through natural sounds.
After a morning spent managing my feelings, English and uncontrollable euphoria, they printed out a contract and asked me if I could do it all within a couple of days.
Yes, two days, but of course I said yes.
Sensitivity often counts more than being an expert.
These were their words, words that I will always remember, having implicitly the motivation of having chosen me for this project.
Working with and for them was my first real step in the world of art, dictated, as it should be, by the unexpected. I lived those two days in insomnia and frenzy, but with the awareness of having marked the beginning of my career.
Of course the first thanks goes to Rufa, the second to my tutor, Raffaele Simongini RUFA lecturer, then the third is to myself.”
