What is between the beginning and the end by Francesco Arena for Parcours 2025

is presented by Sprovieri, Prats Nogueras Blanchard, Raffaella Cortese and Studio Trisorio.

Altalena D, 2025

bronze, chain;

variable dimensions, bronze seat dimensions 60 x 33 x 3 cm

Engraved on the bronze seat of a swing is the phrase: IN MY BEGINNING IN MY END / IN MY END IS MY BEGINNING. The phrase is the opening of East Coker, the second of T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets. “En ma fin est mon commencement” was the motto on Mary Stuart’s banner, which Eliot literally takes up, translates, and reverses (“In my beginning is my end”) at the start of the first movement of this second Quartet, connecting it to a fragment by Heraclitus (Fragment LXX) which states: “The beginning and the end are one.” The phrase is engraved in two parts, facing opposite directions, corresponding to the two directions in which the swing moves: forward and backward.