Basili Kaòs 2026 – Alfonso Siracusa Orlando at the MeTe Museum in Siculiana
For the 22nd Giornata del Contemporaneo, promoted by AMACI, the MeTe Museum in Siculiana hosts Basili Kaòs 2026, a site-specific installation by Alfonso Siracusa Orlando that reinterprets the tradition of the Teste di Moro (Moor’s Head vases) within an imaginary suspended between Mediterranean myth, archaeology, science fiction and cosmology.
The title
It stems from the transformation of Basilikòs, a Greek term linked to basil and to the Sicilian legend of the young woman from Palermo who, betrayed by her lover, severed his head and turned it into a vase for growing the plant, feeding it with her own tears. With the break in Basili Kaòs, the artist connects basil, an organic and earthly element, with the primordial, cosmic chaos of the universe.
The work
At the center, a large anthropomorphic vase glazed in white holds a living basil plant, restoring life and a olfactory dimension to the legend. On the back of the head, the face of a grey alien emerges, a symbol of otherness and of dialogue between the terrestrial and extraterrestrial dimensions. Beside it, a silver female head with a technological, aerospace aesthetic introduces a futuristic vision without erasing the Sicilian ceramic tradition.
The space
The cosmic dimension extends throughout the exhibition space: ceramic flying saucers, placed on the headdress of the Testa di Moro and suspended from the ceiling, turn the museum into an immersive environment and a possible scene of contact with the unknown.
Signs and symbols
The ceramic surfaces become encrypted maps, crossed by geometries and colored lines evoking the Nazca Lines. Intertwined with them are serpents, a recurring presence in the artist’s research and a symbol of transformation, energy, kundalini and occult knowledge. Ancient and futuristic coexist in the same material.
The meaning of the project
With Basili Kaòs 2026, ceramics goes beyond memory and tradition to become body, environment and cosmic device. Myth, identity, otherness, technology and the unknown short-circuit, and the Testa di Moro becomes a threshold between earth and infinity.
Acknowledgments
The project was made possible thanks to the support of the Mayor of Raffadali, Dr. Ida Cuffaro, who granted free use of the municipal ceramics workshop, and the collaboration of ceramist Nada Murena.
A journey from Sicilian memory to the cosmic unknown: a tradition sent back into orbit.
