Keil Space: A Gift of Caring – The Reflections of Psychotherapist Rossella Renzini

Rossella Renzini is a psychotherapist and trainer with over thirty years of experience in research and practice in the fields of empowerment and psychotherapy. Her vision was shaped by her encounter with the theories of the Esalen Institute and the Palo Alto school, which profoundly influenced her academic and professional path. After training in Jungian psychotherapy, she worked with young people struggling with substance addiction, institutional groups and in university and corporate training.

Her approach integrates the exploration of the unconscious with group dynamics, drawing inspiration from ancient traditions and personal experiences, including yoga practice and research trips to India. For Renzini, change is a constant: her work is based on personal and collective transformation, helping individuals and teams develop awareness and potential in an ever-evolving world.

After her experience at Keil Space, Renzini wrote a piece reflecting on her personal encounter with the space and the therapeutic aspects she perceives in experiencing the artworks. The original text was written in italian, we hereby translate the text into English. 

 

I arrived expecting to see a regular exhibition, but right at the entrance, I was met with an experience that both unsettled me and embraced me gently. To my right, I noticed an artifact that fascinated me – a container gleaming like gold, crowned with ancient sacred symbols. My guide opened it, took out peanuts and then fresh water, offering them to me. “Here, pilgrims are welcomed,” I thought, and immediately images of the countless Indian temples I had visited surfaced in my mind. It felt like the beginning of an initiatory, spiritual journey.

I stepped into the colonnaded room. We were underground, with barely any light. Enigmatic sounds and a distinctive scent invited introspection, plunging me into the depths of that darkness where everything began – in our lives and in the universe. Like in a millennia-old temple or the spaceship of a possible future, I saw perfect, stable columns and a vast space. I felt a sense of calm mixed with a hint of unease, confronted with a dark, expansive space where one could either rest or remain on alert.

The darkness, the music and the scent had a seductive and reassuring effect on me. This experience opened a passage – an access point to my/our unconscious, to that part Jung called the collective unconscious. And it is at this profound level that the artist speaks. This unconscious dimension transforms and expands over generations and millennia, like a kind of neural network connecting all human beings. In this psychic space, our primitive selves meet our potential future, just as in this space, the image of an organic, semi-dark cave encounters the architectural perfection of contemporary technology. I felt as if I were in an altered state of consciousness – like in a dream or after deep breathing – and I wondered where this journey would lead.

The next room, dedicated to the First Generation of Bronzes, caught me off guard. It was like an abrupt return to reality. Here, the bronze sculptures spoke of life, transformation and futuristic anthropomorphic forms with elements drawn from nature. And then, Love was at the center of this space, with “Lovers” –  the divine union of the feminine and the masculine, the energetic passage from earth to sky, reaching upward, toward tomorrow, beyond the human. Love unites and transforms – this message struck me powerfully, offering a source of psychological vitality. I believe that at Keil Space, art directly questions our ability to remain in contact with the emotional and sensory spheres.

Just twenty steps away, I came face to face with “Sabre,” from the Second Generation of Bronzes. A golden spear reflecting light, a stunning and fascinating work that, through a manipulation of lighting and advanced technique, produces a double shadow. Shadow and Light – the most fundamental categories of the human psyche: darkness, the unknown within us; light, a symbol of clarity, inner energy and spirituality. Sabre represents the conflict between these forces while simultaneously embodying their resolution.

Upon exiting this room, my guide showed me the countless optical physics calculations involved in creating that special shadow and light. As he explained, emotional currents and profound images stirred within me. Silence is a crucial moment for connecting with a work of art, just as it is in our relationship with ourselves. Art can serve as a medium, allowing us to draw closer to our inner selves.

I stepped into the next room, still immersed in this dimension of wonder and confusion. I sat down and my perception immediately changed. We are beings gifted with a body that, before the mind processes anything, experiences sensations. My blood flow shifted rhythm, my breath slowed, my skin relaxed and my eyes opened like windows in spring. And then came sensory awareness: the first to arrive was smell – the most ancient animal sense in our brain. A scent of earth, vegetal and animal residues, like a forest yet more complex. It calmed and welcomed me; here, I felt safe.

I looked around – colors, shapes and material images of a vegetal and mineral world where the earth’s hues blended with hints of green sea, leaves, blue tones – seasons, births, journeys. There was a Whole that nourished the Body-Mind-Soul. Here, one could meditate, reflect and gather thoughts. It was like being in one’s inner home, in those abstract images rich with meaning, like dreams. As if one could see everything they carried within at that moment. The here and now – this is the essence of meditation, of presence, of allowing what is to emerge. This is the room of feeling and inner creativity.

The music was highly evocative – low, slow frequencies that led to further tension release, relaxation and an expansion of consciousness and imagination. These sounds served the same function as scent in humans – like a mother welcoming her child, or a loved one embracing you.

This is art; this is what art does. It allows us to feel what is not there – what could be. It is an alchemy between the artist’s inner reality and the imagination of the observer. In a world afflicted by the “illness of certainty,” art can embody the unexpected, care and the most human of creative acts – the ability to think, feel and generate new dimensions of reality, just as in dreams. Artists develop dreamlike dimensions, dense with the past yet filtered through contemporary techniques, projecting potential futures.

Art can also heal a contemporary individual dissociated from themselves and their emotions, awakening moments of deep connection with what lies before, around and within them. Art nurtures our imagination – the ability to “see what is not there,” to envision what could be – a vision, an interaction, a sensation, an alchemy between the outer and inner worlds. Imagination opens a space of possibilities within the truth of intuition – a realm of what is not yet conscious, a birthplace of potential futures within us and in the world.

Jung believed that imagination is at the core of psychological creativity – the means through which we reshape our personal histories and psychological wounds, inventing new ways of being ourselves while remaining true to our core identity. In this place, where all senses are stimulated, the visitor can become the subject of an inner psychophysical performance through imagination and experience a form of self-care.

With this work, Samantha Keil gently infiltrates our perception, room by room, guiding us through an imaginative journey and then asking us to reflect on it – through an interview where we are led to articulate our experience, giving words to the images that emerged within us along the way. This process of verbalizing sensations, in a setting reminiscent of a therapist’s office, struck me as deeply innovative – an artist who invites us to speak about her work, placing us at the heart of her creation, listening to us in a profoundly “anti-narcissistic” act. This conveys a rare sense of humanity, the unexpected and a welcoming embrace that is seldom found in contemporary art. The Keil Space experience is truly a Gift of Care.