THE CROCODILE’S HOME: THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME

Lanfranco Aceti’s The Crocodile’s Home confronts the intertwined environmental and cultural crises of the 21st century through the intimate lens of the home. Premiering in the spring of 2024 with a thought-provoking installation at the Museo dell’Altro e dell’Altrove (MAAM) in Rome, the project transforms rivers—often dismissed as mundane elements of the landscape—into powerful loci of refuge, memory, and contested identity.

Aceti employs the evocative symbol of the tear, rendered as both a drop of water and an emblem of grief, to explore the fraught concept of home in an age of environmental collapse and cultural dislocation. This symbol recurs obsessively across the installation, uniting a tapestry of works that evoke nostalgia, mourning, and resilience.

Structured in Four Chapters

The Crocodile’s Home is the first chapter of a broader artistic investigation structured into four segments: The Home of the Crocodile, The Crocodile’s Lament, A River of Crocodile Tears, and The Flight of the Crocodile. Each chapter delves deeper into themes of environmental degradation, cultural displacement, and the search for authentic expressions of grief and hope in the face of systemic crises.

This initial chapter, installed at MAAM, examines rivers as sanctuaries and as sites of cultural and ecological neglect. By transforming everyday objects into poignant art pieces—towels, curtains, plates, mugs, tiles, all adorned with tear motifs—Aceti evokes the overwhelming flood of toxic nostalgia. A vinyl record, featuring a text by Serena Damiani performed live at MAAM, brings an auditory dimension to the installation, weaving narratives of loss and resilience.

From Singapore to Rome: A Global Narrative of Water and Capitalism

Initially conceived in Singapore—a place where water is entangled with sewage and urban planning under the strict logic of advanced capitalism—the project critiques how resources are valued solely through economic paradigms. Singapore’s sanitized landscapes devoid of natural elements serve as a stark counterpoint to the mythic, emotional, and ecological roles rivers have historically played.

In The Crocodile’s Home, the crocodile becomes a central metaphor, embodying society’s dual crises of environmental degradation and cultural despair. The crocodile’s infamous “tears” symbolize a deluge of performative grief—fake mourning masking genuine destruction. These tears reflect the tearing apart of societal values, the erosion of the environment, and the disintegration of the home itself.

Objects of Nostalgia and Toxicity

The installation’s objects populate a reimagined home, each imbued with Aceti’s signature tear motif. These everyday items are decorated with subtle variations in pattern and color, creating a sense of obsessive repetition. This flood of tears is not only visual but visceral, evoking the toxic sedimentations of memory and water. Toxic rivers, polluted by both industry and human neglect, traverse landscapes and bodies alike, leaving behind residues of regret and ecological destruction.

Aceti transforms these sedimentations into metaphorical and physical manifestations of collective, toxic nostalgia—a reminder of the irreparable damages of the past and the looming uncertainties of the future.

Politics, Power, and Resistance

Aceti’s work critiques the relentless flow of toxic memories and pollutants that traverse both our landscapes and bodies, leaving behind layers of ‘toxic nostalgia.’ The crocodiles’ deluge of fake tears becomes a poignant symbol of performative governance—policymakers distant from the lived struggles of everyday survival. The work underscores the power dynamics at play, juxtaposing the impotence of individuals against the grandstanding of distant politicians.

“Lanfranco Aceti’s work transforms personal grief and ecological anxiety into a powerful statement about our shared responsibilities,” said Giorgio de Finis, curator of the Museo dell’Altro e dell’Altrove. “It’s a call to action as much as it is a reflection on loss.”

“It’s rare to encounter an artist who so seamlessly blends cultural critique with emotional resonance,” remarked Alessandro Melis. “The Crocodile’s Home is an urgent and necessary response to the environmental and social fractures of our time.”

Yet, within this narrative of grief and erosion, The Crocodile’s Home also offers a glimmer of hope. Through collective resilience and acts of care, it gestures toward a future rooted in matriarchal foresight and sustainable values. The installation imagines a home prepared for the generations to come, where the river—cleansed of its toxic tears—may once again flow freely, unburdened by the weight of history.

A Testament to Artistic Foresight

With The Crocodile’s Home, Lanfranco Aceti crafts a poignant and multi-layered narrative that bridges the personal and the global, the domestic and the ecological. By transforming everyday objects into carriers of profound meaning, Aceti invites viewers to confront their complicity in environmental and cultural collapse while imagining pathways to resilience and renewal.