This incursion of Dompè at the IX International Biennial City of Carrara ended the series of three works created in the summer of 1998 and dedicated to three women who have struggled for liberty (see 26 and 27). Leyla Zana, former Kurd deputy, and presently imprisoned in a maximum security cell for having supported and expressed the position of the Kurdish people, against which the Turkish regime has for years conducted a policy of hard repression. This work, dedicated to the courage and the strength of Zana, is an imposing installation in marble, material that yokes together the profound meaning of the work and the characteristics of the place where it was constructed. The chosen area was completely filled with local marble, and the exits were blocked by walls of stone, creating an atmosphere of suffocation which recreates the state of being imprisoned. The path carved inside of the large work alludes to the words, denied to the imprisoned Zana, and taken up by the artist: “her air carved in the stone, my hands, my mind, in order to escape. I am her means of going beyond, the body does not exist, the spirit is free.”

Laura Iamurri