THE HANDS TELL

THE HANDS TELL

Jun 1, 2024 | ART, ART

Le mani raccontano – The hands tell is an exhibition organised by the Arte in Vigevano association at the second stable of the Castello Sforzesco in Vigevano. 

As you can see from the cover of the exhibition catalogue, the hands of the artists are portrayed, hands that are an expression of the feminine as art.

The preface is by Edoardo Maffeo. 

The hands tell the story of art expressed in different ways, but still manage to communicate a common element: passion.

The hands that tell of women’s creativity.

The hands that tell are those of ten women from the Pavia area:


Samantha Bonanno

Antonietta Bussi

Luciana Casatti

Loretta Dell’Acqua

Laura Dell’Erba

Diana Dent

Carla Gioetto

Rosy Mantovani

Chiara Sidoti

and Rita Viarenghi, artist and organiser of the event.

I have been following Samantha Bonanno for some time and once again I was enchanted.

Her hands are magical, capable of creating ethereal suggestions with paper together with concrete emotions.

She says about herself: ‘for me everything in life is Art.’

This is her Nubivago: a learned voice retrieved from the Latin nubivagus, composed from nūbes “cloud” + vagus “wandering” that wanders, flies among the clouds, with the head in the clouds.

And I am in love with it.

IPSEITA’ instead represents all the reflections made on asserting oneself, as a unique and distinguishable individual.

Becoming oneself is a lifelong journey, and perhaps that is what is so fascinating in my eyes.
Samantha Bonanno 

What could your hands tell ?

KEEP CALM AND POTA

KEEP CALM AND POTA

Apr 13, 2024 | ART, ART, CULTURE, CULTURE, WOMEN, WOMEN

Keep calm and pota!

Don’t say you’re not already smiling thinking to Keep calm and pota.

I immediately lit up, also because Keep calm and pota is curated by Piöcc’s Café.

Café! A coincidence, or rather, I would directly say a sign.

A sign that I immediately grasped when I contacted the Teatro Centro Lucia in Botticino Sera.

Yes, you read that right: theatre.

Elena kindly explained that their artistic direction in recent seasons has been proposing a review of dialectal comedies from the Brescia area entitled ‘Èl bel del dialet a teàter’.

As I have already mentioned, I am very fond of dialect. 

Keep calm and pota is therefore a dialect comedy, and Cafè di Piöcc a theatre company.

Elena also helped me contact the director: Manuela.

In two words: a revelation!

Quoting Queen Agatha:
A clue is a clue, two clues are a coincidence, but three clues make a proof.

Keep Calm, Coffee and Friendship. 

The founders of the Café di Piöcc are three friends who meet in the parvis of the cathedral church in Montichiari.

Money is tight and friends watch the gentlemen eat pastries and drink wine, but they can only afford water from the fountain: the Café di Piöcc then, that is, the poor man’s café.

At Cafè di Piöcc, stories, gossip and historical facts are told.

From these tales, one of the first theatre companies in Brescia was born in 1970, a troupe that was also the subject of a university thesis.

Manuela joined the company, gradually performing various tasks: props girl, prompter, actress with a small part, assistant director.

Until one evening in the rehearsal room she picked up a book from which an envelope came out with a letter that no one had ever seen.

Destiny, magic, what would you call it?

In this letter, Beppe Boschetti, one of the three founding friends, had expressed his wish to leave the company in Manuela’s hands.

A story made up of people, a long journey made up of extremely remarkable theatre works such as I tre innocenti (The Three Innocents), inspired by news events, or Semplicemente donna (Simply Woman): a red chair and 49 changes of clothes representing the stages of life up to menopause.

And yet settings and periods vary while the common denominator remains the titles that are idioms, e.g. Petost che peji l’è mei insi or Ogné come la sàpes stada.

All the way to Keep Calm and pota.

Pota is the word that unites Brescia and Bergamo, an intercalary that, pronounced with the typical accent, is always very nice.

The author had the intuition to combine pota with the expression keep calm, linking up with Freud’s truth, the female Ego interjecting itself with the Super Ego, and communicating a message: love wins.

Speaking of messages, the Cafè di Piöcc also collaborates with the municipality of Montichiari for social work with the Legality in short project. 

It can therefore be said that Cafè di Piöcc keeps calm but is unstoppable!

Many many compliments and a special thanks to Manuela Danieli.

I HAVE SEEN HER

I HAVE SEEN HER

Mar 9, 2024 | A COFFEE WITH, WOMEN, MUSIC, MUSIC, A COFFEE WITH, WOMEN

I saw her win it …

And “it” is the BB Global Force award presented by Billboard magazine during the BB Women in music ceremony. 

Global Force as an award given in recognition of a woman in the music industry who has made a significant contribution to the business and who, through her work and continued success, inspires generations of women to take on increasing responsibilities in the field.

The Women in music event celebrates women at the forefront of all fields of music from composers and songwriters to educators and all other music professions.

I saw her …

She needs no introduction: Annalisa, @nali is Global Force.

I did not follow her debut, and the first time I heard of her was in the measure of “good but second best.”

Until during a play organised by the middle school my son attends, a pupil struck me by singing about a blue cat. 

I then went to research and discovered that the song was by Annalisa.

Annalisa who for all these years has continued undaunted to be “good, but in second place”.

And yet there is not a person who does not know her ‘I saw her …’.

Despite having my radio perpetually on the frequency of Virgin, a radio that only plays rock music, without really knowing how or why, I have found the refrain of Mon amour in my head.

And ‘I saw her…’ has officially become part of my way of speaking: when I find myself describing something mixed, tangled, entangled.

Physics graduate Annalisa Scarrone, Nali, teaches us how to chase dreams and show the world the Global Force.

Did you see her win?

I dedicate this photo to Tony: ultimate Katy Perry connoisseur.

PIAZZA DUCALE COVERED

PIAZZA DUCALE COVERED

Dec 2, 2023 | ITALY, WOMEN

I already told you about the Piazza Ducale in Vigevano: together we discovered the traces of Jewish presence, starting from the past to arrive at the present of the smart city version. 

We saw it as a coffee lounge but also as a setting for cosplayers of Star Wars characters.

I wish you wouldn’t miss the Piazza Ducale “covered” version.

Suggestive, isn’t it?

Impressive.

At dawn

and sunset of a whole day dedicated to sharing.

These beautiful coloured blankets are all made of four knitted or crocheted squares joined together by a red thread as a symbol of relationship and union.

For months, many women worked to make these blankets with multicoloured wool and lots of imagination.

Some alone, like Betty during convalescence, some in groups, like Carola’s mother during the weekly meetings based on chatting, knitting and good things to eat.

And more blankets arrived from all over Italy, answering the call of Viva Vittoria. 

Viva Vittoria is a relational work shared by women for women.

Knitting is understood as a metaphor for self-development and conveys a message of awareness: we are the creators of our own existence.

If we are able to bring about change in ourselves, change can also take place in society as a reflection.

The idea of bringing these blankets from moments of aggregation was born in Brescia in 2015 and the proceeds of the sale are used for charitable purposes.

In Vigevano, three thousand blankets were adopted in Piazza Ducale in a few hours, the sum collected will be donated to the association Kore alongside women victims of violence.

SMART CITY

SMART CITY

Sep 3, 2022 | ITALY, JOURNEY FROM MUG TO MUG, TECHNOLOGY

Smart City is a definition that recurs more and more often now.

Smart City is one of the main themes of civics hours in school.

But specifically how do you experience what smart offers in your city?

In your experience, can you tell of an actual improvement in the quality of your life, or is it all still ephemeral in your neck of the woods for now?

In the image I wanted to finally “offer” you a coffee in Piazza Ducale.

But the city of Vigevano offers many other experiences, including virtual ones.

On the City’s website you can check out a Vigevano Smart City dashboard with some options among which I would like to point out the live webcam. 

And when you decide to come and visit our ducal living room, you will have at your disposal these directions that offer the possibility of more information via QR code.

In the same vein, a “digital” bench was inaugurated.

Red, as red is the symbolic color against violence against women. 

The problem is that hand in hand should also be converted the education of citizens, who too often prove to be the exact opposite of smart.

A marker mark was enough to make the QR code illegible.

This tiny stroke actually emblematically represents a great trait that sets us apart, and likewise reveals the weakness on which what should be the future rests ….

Archives

Pin It on Pinterest