DOM: What is the distinction between street art, urban art and graffiti? Or it is a synonyms?
Nemo: It's a big debate. I think everyone has its own definition. For me the term «street art» is more about commissioned artworks in the city, but more framed, thanks to organization, associations, thanks to social projects around neighborhoods or, more often, for commercial purposes. I see it as a way to add color to the city in a way that people enjoy. It's definitely more about entertainment.
Graffiti is more about the spontaneous side of urban art and it's a quite complex movement. The essence of it, is the street. Basically you don't have to ask to nobody if you can or not, you do it, and this creates a lot of confusion around how it should be, or should not be, around who can do it and who can't. Of course the public opinion usually is not really good about it for this reason, without noticing and fighting the real problems and much bigger issues in the urban context but also on a social systemic side. Why not to focus around the outrageous amount of money spent to convince you to buy things (all techniques included), the fetish for concrete, all the empty buildings left in ruins meanwhile people struggle for decent housing, the cancer of tourism that is eating all the cities... the list can carry on. Money before not only people, but everything else.
A lack of sensitivity, empathy and love makes the future of cities very uncertain, at least for what I feel.
I believe in the power of people and coming from the ground, graffiti writing is the counter answer of this societal discomfort, manifesting in its own way the freedom of existing despite all frictions. The spread of this culture is an important symptom that is actually defining and taking more and more space in our collective imagery and needs.
For the seek of clarity in an historical timeline, to define your question, graffiti writing is the mother of this new street art contemporary phenomenon, that truly disconnected from its origin.
DOM: Do you talk about some activism in your works?
Nemo: Yes, but not directly. I don't really like slogans and don't express my self on a first grade of analysis. i.e. I consider myself feminists, but I don't speak about feminism, my work speaks for me. If you check my path, you can observe different subjects of research experienced in a poetical dimension. It's more like an active silent revolution, you know? Just be. Facts remains that I feel free also to have direct messages, when I am in the need of them.
DOM: And which subjects also besides of feminism do you worried about?
Nemo: I am interested in deconstructing the status quo, I am attracted by the dynamics generated by mass production goods system and ecology in general. Since I was in London, in 2011, I started to use recycled paint. I carried on to paint more and more with rollers. The tag-roller became my main tool instead of spray cans, because of their toxicity.
I use the roller as a printing technique enhancing the tagnology, the technology around the art of tagging. The tools I wanted to use didn't exist in the shops, so I had to invent my own ones and build them. And this is like a kind of a declaration of independence from the market products . And, yes, for sure this is the start of my small revolution. After my personal needs, my desire is to show people that there are alternative ways of doing things.