Objets, corps et trajectoires de sens. Représentation de la spatialité claustrale

Abstract

In this paper I discuss some cases of situational spaces where issues of relational meaning between objects that are loaded with sacred significance and the spatiality in which they are located arise. The relational issues occur on account of concrete or symbolic proximity/distance and/or juxtaposition. Such relationality is construed by the social actors based on monastic norms, which stabilize space and act on the object itself, albeit indirectly, modifying it. The analysis takes into account two main indicators, i.e. the author’s personal participatory experience in a French Carmelite monastery on the one hand, and some of the pictures made by photographer Franco Zecchin of those spaces I myself experienced on the other. The photographic representation clarifies how spatiality itself generates the order of the place, through visual correspondence, outlining trajectories of meaning and the objects’ status.