24/10/2021
Friends, I want to share this article on the final recap of an ambitious cultural project of which I was invited to propose by the Special Office of Reconstruction here in Abruzzo over 2 years ago. It ended up being carried forward by dozens of people, from those providing leadership in local municipalities to the team of tenacious organizers that coordinated everything on the ground level, and above all, to the 13 International Artists who traveled to arrive to this remote region in Italy to share their their hearts and talents with local communities across four different municipalities and beyond.
I copied a direct translation from Google translate below for all of you that are back in the states and elsewhere outside of Italy so you can read about this great work they have accomplished. I thank all of them for their perseverance in realizing this project against extraordinary odds while amidst a global pandemic!
Special thanks to journalist Filippo Tronca for continuing to share the stories and articulate the substance and significance of artistic and creative engagement as a genuine force of transformation.
❤️🔥
Todd Thomas Brown
Flight Attendant,
Fontecchio International Airport
“REHABIT WITH ART”, THE BEAUTY THAT RECONSTRUCTS A MODEL TO REPLICATE
FONTECCHIO - “The cultural aspect is fundamental, together with primary services, to make our countries attractive, the territories of inland areas, which are already 'good living', because they have the beauty of history and nature on their side, and now they need the beauty of sociability. Rehabiting with art has traveled a part of this path, with the involvement of the local population, and now it is a project that needs to be developed and extended ".
This is the balance and the prospect of Riabitare con arte, in the words of Roberto Di Vincenzo, president of Carsa, the creator of the project developed from July to October, in the municipalities of L'Aquila in the homogeneous area 8 of the 2009 seismic crater Barisciano, Fontecchio, Fossa and Ocre, supporters of the project, and again in Acciano, Fagnano Alto, Poggio Picenze, San Demetrio ne 'Vestini, Sant'Eusanio Forconese, Tione degli Abruzzi and Villa Sant'Angelo.
Thirteen artists and artists of international standing, arrived from nine countries, who involved citizens and tourists in workshops, performances, design and creation of mosaics, murals, video and photographic, theatrical, artisanal, conceptual projects, in an intimate dialogue with the territory, its values, its aspirations.
To summarize the initiative and define its future developments, in the convent of San Francesco di Fontecchio, in addition to Roberto Di Vincenzo, there were yesterday Raffaello Fico, owner of the Usrc, Giovanni Legnini extraordinary commissioner for post-earthquake reconstruction 2016, Roberto Santangelo, vice president of the Abruzzo Regional Council, Stefania Pezzopane, deputy, Rinaldo Tordera, president of the Academy of Fine Arts of L'Aquila, Pietro Barrera, general secretary of the Maxxi foundation, Giovannino Anastasio, coordinator of the mayors of the 2009 crater. mayors of Fontecchio, Sabrina Ciancone, of Barisciano, Fabrizio D'Alessandro, of Fossa, Fabrizio Boccabella and of Ocre, Gianmatteo Riocci.
Representing the leading artists, Amirah Gazel from Costa Rica, in streaming, and Sebastian Alvarez, from Peru. And again Stefania Ziglio, intercultural administrative mediator of the project, Allison Delauer, artistic director, Silvia Di Gregorio, creative director.
To moderate Oscar Buonamano, journalist and editorial director of Carsa.
"In the seismic crater, with the reconstruction progressing - said Fico -, we begin to have a wide availability of houses, restored and safe, today the theme is therefore that of residentiality, of the concrete use, of the glues that allow us to recover sociality in These countries. The project was born from an intuition of a Californian, Todd Brown, an artist who now lives in Fontecchio, and was carried out on a very low budget, but he fully hit the target, created hospitality and exchange, mutual contamination. An easily exportable project, and we intend to do it starting with all the municipalities of the 2009 crater, expanding the collaborations with local associations and artists ”.
A project that Commissioner Legnini is looking at with great interest, on the front of the reconstruction of the crater in Central Italy.
"The sense of re-inhabiting with art is also affirming and embodying the right to beauty, sculpted in article nine of the Constitution In Valle Roveto between the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, a school of Danish artists decided to settle in Civita D'Antino, chosen as a reference village to attract artists from all over Europe, for over thirty years - recalled Legnini -. Now in the 2016 crater we are trying to animate an experience similar to that of the Maxxi dell’Aquila, in the villages totally destroyed by the earthquake, which must be given a new 'forma urbis', a new soul. Putting together these ideas for reflection, we can activate an important planning, in the certainty that the economic resources are there, in addition to those coming from the Restart funds, now also on the complementary fund of the NRP, which however has very short deadlines ".
To bring the greetings of the Regional Council, the vice president Santangelo: "Our region must recover a lot in terms of tourist attractiveness - said Santangelo -. There are huge resources to draw on European funds, but we need projects that are not vitiated by localism, but strictly networked. Art transmits emotions and feelings, but we cannot ignore the identity of the territory, we have a very rich history and tradition to interact and dialogue with new languages and new artistic expressions ".
"Indeed, a 'hole' was represented by the lack of the Academy in this beautiful project - highlighted Tordera -. We promise ourselves to be protagonists in the following, which I imagine will have to be multi-year. We have projects to develop not only in the city of L'Aquila, but also in the municipalities of the crater. The fine arts, culture, are the sea of the mountain territories, a sea that must also become an economic tool ".
"A wonderful experience - said Barrera -. Admired of the work that has been done, by the artists, by the mayors, by all the organizers, by the communities. In the aftermath of the Belice earthquake in Sicily, many artists intervened with the creation of works, but it was not a successful, successful project, because there was no involvement of the communities that did not have those experiences. Here, working in tight deadlines, the right path was chosen instead. Now we need to study long-term strategies ”.
The "landlady", the mayor of Fontecchio Ciancone, recalled that "behind the poetry that this project has expressed, there is also the prose, the hard work that was necessary, it is not easy to start a policy of growth of a territory that intends to focus on culture, it is not easy to make different languages, from other cultures and countries, interact with the local habitual ones, which are more a refuge than an expression of strength. The path of participation needs perseverance and method, otherwise it becomes rhetoric, it becomes sterile ”.
Mayor D'Alessandro added: "Confronting with international artists was an important experience, the artists were hosted in a private house, renovated after the earthquake and there was a wonderful participation of the population".
The mayor of Fossa spoke of “an important result. Fossa takes into account long-standing problems in the reconstruction process. Even the artists who came here, with their energy and enthusiasm, gave us further strength to win the battle, to rebuild our country more beautiful than before and full of life ”.
The mayor of Ocre Riocci added: “the artists who came to us managed to enter the hearts of the inhabitants, to involve them emotionally. It is said that culture is an economic investment, but it is above all an intrinsic value for people, especially in places where the social fabric has been disrupted by the earthquake. This project has left something concrete, and that is why it deserves to be developed ”.
Intense intervention, in connection from Costa Rica, by Amirah Gazel, who created murals in San Panfilo d'Ocre. "If we think of art, we evoke paintings hanging on the wall and museums where the works are contemplated by an audience, but the art is something less sacred, art is everywhere, in homes, in clothes, in objects, it is also showing the limits of human imagination. Art tells us that things can be perceived differently from how they normally appear to us. Art is participation. For me Abruzzo was really strong and kind ".
Sebastian Alvarez, who took up his home in Fontecchio where he made a large moon in a geodesic structure with bars of recycled newspaper, raised by a crane over the roofs of the town, explained that, “I am here, because in this place there is it is more nature than culture, we are surrounded by the monumental, the sublime, and I am tired of metropolitan areas, where there is too much culture and little nature, too much future, too many algorithms, too much art with little substance. In any case, nature will say how extraordinary the things we are doing will be. For this reason I have for now decided to come and live in Fontecchio ”.
The word then passed to the organizing staff: Stefania Ziglio said that “few would have believed that in a post-lockdown period it would have been possible to create artistic residencies for three months. The goal was to rewrite the imaginary of places, to tell what a territory is becoming, now that the deep wounds of the earthquake have healed. This has happened, the are artists want to return, others are already living here. Living with art was not a project for communities, but for communities ".
Allison Delauer has also lived for over a year in Fontecchio, in the hamlet of San Pio, “I was invited here by Todd Brown, to live in these places, not just to collaborate on a project. A good choice, I immediately felt a deep connection with this land. We have now created a bridge that will allow many artists to come here, bringing something necessary to everyone's life, in terms of empathy and well-being ”, this is a passage of her intervention.
Finally Silvia Di Gregorio: "It was an experience full of connections and relationships. From the beginning, the community was not a mere background, everything was designed to make the proposal engaging, to encourage direct and mutual knowledge. How to curb the depopulation of towns and villages, a phenomenon of European scope? Rehab with art has brought residences, knowledge, knowledge, open looks. This may be one of the answers ”.
To further identify new perspectives the new coordinator of the mayors Anastasio: “a project carried out in the areas most affected by the earthquake of 2009. It is perhaps the one that needed it most. It will be important to replicate it in all the municipalities of the crater. Our task will be to find the resources. But that's not a problem, the resources are there, we can leverage the restart funds. Our office will be able to collaborate, for example, to streamline bureaucratic procedures, to provide administrative support ".
Finally Stefania Pezzopane said: “What I heard and saw gave me valuable suggestions. This land has suffered a violent trauma, and that is why it can now have an added value compared to other territories. Things done here, if done well, work a lot more than in other places. Here the reaction force can create a new spirit, it can create an unprecedented one. It is no coincidence that we fought, achieving the goal, to obtain funds for social and cultural revival in addition to the priority ones for the reconstruction of our homes. And Rehabiting with art has interpreted this opportunity in the best possible way ".
The Argentine artist Bruno Morello and Amirah Gazel took part in the first edition of Rehab with art, who created murals together with the local population respectively in Fossa and San Panfilo d’Ocre. That of Fossa mobile, built on old boards and windows, the second on the walls of the map and at the entrance to the school. Martina Riescher from Munich in Germany with her "Hello world, Abruzzo calling", Gisela Weimann from Berlin in Germany with the installation "Cocci e Pietre"; Angiola Bonanni from Madrid in Spain with "voices in the landscape", Michelle Wilson with her "rhinocero's Project" from the United States, the Iranian Mamhoud Saleh Mohammadi with "Love Is UniversAll and" SagrArt ", Jonathon Keats from the United States with the" fountain of tolerance ", Huda Lutfi from Egypt with her" memory shelf ", the Canadian Suzanne Sphai with her" mosaic carpets ", Sebastian Alvarez from Peru with the performance" the distance of the Moon ", Louis Fantasia from the States United with the staging of Shakespeare's plays set in Italy, Lewis deSoto from the USA who with his photographic project and his very particular technique went to discover the "places of the heart" of the inhabitants.
FONTECCHIO – “L’aspetto culturale è fondamentale, assieme ai servizi primari, per rendere attrattivi i nostri paesi, i territori delle aree interne, che sono già del ‘buon vivere’, perché...
