Santina Amato

Because the flowers wont last, 2019

In this series titled ‘Because the flowers wont last’, glass is making its first appearance in Amato’s work, sitting alongside her old friend bread dough. Amato says of the work;


“Glass has been a difficult material to work with and has brought out the most delightful of challenges, that of strength and fragility co-existing. The glassware itself was purchased from local thrift stores and my intention is for them to be returned to the shelves to await their forever homes, having momentarily existed in this exhibition.


In the making of this work, I realised how important everyday materials are to my existence. At my money making job as a Server, I polish endless amounts of glasses, handling both clean and lipstick stained dirty glassware continually. Part of my role is to associate oral pleasure with the shape of glassware and the liquids contained within them, while also thinking about garnish to sit on its edge for visual affect to enhance that oral pleasure.


I’ve created these towers, or fountains, using these once discarded household objects. By placing dough at the center of my work, both my imagination and that of my audience, is captured. Captivated by its materiality and the way it moves in space, we don’t actually notice that we develop an expectation for the way it should behave within the scenarios I create. We watch, ever so closely at each tiny movement in the hope that that particular movement will be the one that satisfies us; that bit, right there, that’s about to fall! It will satisfy us, give us pleasure, give us what we expect when watching dough move slowly, especially in this scenario where it is slithering around the strength and fragility of glass. We want the dough to perform in a particular way; in this case, we want the dough to destroy the scene. Instead, the dough fails to deliver. It keeps us in a suspended state of wanting in its failure to deliver. The expectation does not go away with every scenario I create for the dough. If anything, with each ‘failed’ performance, the dough actually increases both my desire, and that of my audience, to keep seeking that sweet spot of satisfaction that is an end result, that actually never comes.”

Opening Night Performance Photo Almudena Caso

Opening Night Performance Photo Almudena Caso

Opening Night Performance Photo Almudena Caso

Opening Night Performance Photo Almudena Caso

Day after performance

Day after performance

Day after performance

Last day of exhibition

Last day of exhibition

Last day of exhibition

Last day of exhibition

Last day of exhibition

Last day of exhibition

Last day of exhibition

Last day of exhibition

Last day of exhibition

Last day of exhibition

Last day of exhibition

Video Excerpt