The starting point for this series ranges from the irony and tension in Goya’s depictions of elderly figures on swings to the theatricality of Fragonard’s Les Hasards Heureux de l’escarpolette. From there, Scaccia began to reflect on the word “swing” and its layered associations: shifting moods, emotional volatility, and the way femininity is often framed as unpredictable. She extended this play on language toward dancing, rhythm, and even the contemporary idea of “swingers,” exploring identity and the shifting roles or masks people wear.

Playing with the idea of a swing, this work focuses on what happens at its top. Traditionally, swings are attached to overhanging branches, but here a figure stands atop the branch in red stockings. The swing itself is only suggested, visible through the chain and cord attached to the tree branch. There is also a curtain, one of the clearest symbols of a threshold or transformation. The movement of the swing becomes a metaphor for change, its back-and-forth rhythm evokes a sense of existential uncertainty: sometimes we feel we are moving, yet we remain in place. The composition creates the illusion of space, or perhaps none at all, functioning like a theatrical set where background and foreground dissolve, and there is no sense of a realistic environment.