Art is always the result of constraint. To believe that it rises higher as it becomes freer is to believe that what keeps the kite from rising is its string. (André Gide) ​ The rope - an essential object in Art History - covers the Saints’ hips painted on the altarpieces, the only divine symbol important in the Virgin Mary’s Assumption into Heaven, it falls into Saint Thomas’ hands as a divine proof. Furthermore, it holds the cross on Assisi’s Franciscan walls, so thin yet Giotto’s first modern perspective tool. Tireless, it weaves Art History in the Da Vinci’s Codes as a mean that gives strength to his visionary machines, it covers baroque columns, it watches over hangings and revolutions to become – finally – “objet d’Art” in the 20th Century, witnessing the emancipation of Art. New materials for new ideas, it is a matter of communications: Cubism, Futurism, Constructivism, Dadaism, a jump into the absolute modernity of languages where fabric, in particular, plays an important role in the performing arts, theatre, happenings. Though, after WW2, it is with the vanguard movement that the rope really starts to be considered as an “object”; in particular, with the Anti-Form movement and Arte Povera, which is when the study of processes becomes work of art instead of its result. The work of art, or - rather - the installation, is an ensemble of physical-tactile elements and its space-time characteristic is essential to establish a relationship between the work of art and the viewer. The artist’s feelings emerge from the molded object, the absence of minimalist geometric forms’ rigidity is clear, it is not programmed art but “action-art” that considers Time an unrepeatable - and constantly changing - creative moment. From Robert Morris’ textiles to Eva Hesse, from Pino Pascali’s “Trap” to Giovanni Anselmo’s “Tensions”, through Penone’s trees, the concept of molded form is stripped off of its “classical” sculptural connotation, to find, in particular in the work of female artists, new forms of expression far away from the monumental rhetoric, focused on a more personal and intimate research using “untraditional” materials. Marisa Merz, Silvie Fleury, Rosemarie Trokkel, Louise Bourgeois, Magdalena Abakanowicz, Yayoi Kusama, they all focused on alienated subjects; outsiders of the Art world, they described traumas, wounds, psychosis, they sew to fathom the sorrows, to heal, but also to interpret the Thought as if it was a single thread in a messy bundle. It is the Ariadne’s thread which follows different paths revealing - as Nietzsche would assume - absence and impossibility, for words to find the truth. Annette Messager, Ghada Amer and Maria Lai, major representatives of fiber-art, get to similar results by using weaving as visual poetry. ​ Janaina Mello Landini’s work fits in this variegated poetry, investigating on the universal principles that regulate the eco-systems. In her ongoing series “Ciclotrama”, the metaphoric burden is impressive. ​ It goes without saying that Time here is essential: But time is too large, it cannot be filled up. Everything you plunge into it is stretched and disintegrated, wrote Sartre. However Janaina seems to “unstitch” Time from its inside, unraveling the threads of the same rope in constant bifurcations, until the last indivisible stage is reached, a point that holds everything together in perfect equilibrium. Cyclic Time and progressive Time, one connected with Nature, one with Manhood: in Ciclotrama 16 (2014) Janaina seems to perfectly interpret the baroque still-lives’ “memento mori”, like if she tried to place a rotten apple in the middle of the threads that are there to protect it and save it from the inevitable destiny. Ciclotrama is also a memory guardian, when the threads climb on top of small object, like an ivy. Perhaps Time, as Saramago wrote, is not a rope that can be measured knot by knot; Time is an oblique and undulating surface which only memory can call forth and approach. But in her work Janaina managed to describe the relationship between Time and Space better than a math equation, including the emotional variable that loosens the cold calculation and transforms it into poetry. ​ Being at the same time Art, Nature, Thought, Janaina Mello Landini’s research is most interesting, recognisable and internationally acclaimed.