Ittah Yoda

The duo Ittah Yoda, composed of Virgile Ittah and Kai Yoda, was formed following their meeting at the Royal College of London, where one studied sculpture while the other studied photography and animation. From their beginnings, fascinated by both natural and digital worlds, they began working on the idea of a post-anthropocene world where these two elements would coexist harmoniously in what they call the “symbiocene”. While virtual reality occupies a central place in their work, serving as a matrix and gestation process, all the forms that materialize later in painting, sculpture, and installation present themselves as an ecosystem in themselves, inspired by organic forms and materials and developed through collaborations with numerous artisans. Each Ittah Yoda project represents a step towards the realization of this ideal symbiotic ecosystem, where the mediums used, the objects created, embody and share “genetic-artistic” information from their environment. Although oriented towards an idea of the future, their work is rooted in art history, drawing in particular from references such as cave paintings and pigmentary painting techniques. The installation created for the “Arcadia” exhibition was created following a period of residencies by the artist duo at the Bally Foundation, culminating in the study of the territory and the collection of in-situ elements such as minerals, lichens, or dust. The immersive environment they create through paintings, sculptures, smells, and objects thus evoke a fantasized landscape, a kind of modern Arcadia that finds its echo in the Ticino landscape, notably that inspired by Lake Lugano.