Federica Pochini was born in Rome in 1998, and soon moved outside the city, to a small town not far from the sea.
After an uncertain but highly formative course of classical studies, she decided to pursue an artistic path, having fallen in love with the magic of Greek theatre.
She graduated with top marks in Set Design and Costume Design from RUFA-Rome University of Fine Arts, three years of her life filled with commitment and satisfaction, which not only gave her the opportunity to train as a set designer but also fostered in her the need to broaden her professional profile by extending it to Art Director. For this reason, she decided to continue her studies, leave the small town near the sea and move to Milan.
Thanks precisely to her graduation thesis, she managed to win a scholarship at a well-known Fashion and Design university and is currently attending a master in Digital Design focused on immersive experiences.
During her academic years she collaborated on several theatrical productions, including “Rumors”, staged at the Ambra Jovinelli. She completed a curricular internship, which later became her first professional experience, as an assistant Location Manager for the series “Un Professore”, produced by Banijay Italia. Once she had completed her university studies, she worked as assistant set designer to Francesco Filosa on the television game show “Wild Things: il bosco dei più pazzi”, produced by Banijay Italia and broadcast on Boing.
H – Cirque du Soleil: quando i sogni costruiscono la realtà
“H – Cirque du Soleil: quando lo show punta alla sensibilizzazione” is the name of my thesis project and was one of my greatest efforts, as it was the result of an entire year of work. “H” is a show inspired by several writings on the relationship between disability and photography; it is a work for which I curated the direction, set design and costumes, seeking to propose my own artistic vision capable of awakening the viewer’s perception of what is “different”.
The show was divided into 4 fundamental scenes, based on the 4 visual rhetorics of Dr Rosemarie Garland Thomson, a scholar who throughout her career investigated the different ways in which able-bodied people behave when confronted with photographs of people with disabilities.
Four scenes (or tableaux) were thus created: Il Meraviglioso, L’Esotico, Il Sentimentale, Il Realistico, different situations in which the viewer can observe Cirque du Soleil artists and disabled athletes working together, in a moment of total inclusion.
From the very beginning of the design process, several issues were addressed, mainly relating to the structural scale of the proposed ideas, which nevertheless found solutions through intensive research into technique and mechanics.
The show was created inside The Han Show Theatre, a building constructed specifically for circus arts in Wuhan, China, capable not only of accommodating large-scale engineering works but also of enhancing the provocative tone of this project.
A different and innovative project, intertwining a delicate concept with complex scenic requirements.
