Showing posts with label Italian culture. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Italian culture. Show all posts

GiBì & DoppiaW: Italian creativity to boost social empathy


A contagious star, the star of peace

It was one of those afternoons devoted to writing and with no planned outings. When I got tired of staring at my computer screen, I went for a refreshing stroll.

I was dawdling about my little town with my camera, as usual, looking for nothing in particular. Christmas time, possible season decorations to capture. Although the simple festive ornament in Ghilarza is prerogative of the sole main street, I was drawn away from the town centre by a quirky green sign leading toward Piazza Torre Aragonese, named after a big Aragonese tower that dominates the little square.

On my left, just behind the tower, something caught my attention: the entrance to a comics. It took me a minute to understand I had ended up at an interactive exhibition for children.

Kids were meant to go during their morning classes, so in the afternoon the venue was empty and I had all curators around me willing to explain the meaning of their art.

Yes, because Gibì & DoppiaW need at least an introduction. Their author, Walter Kostner, was born in Ortisei, picturesque town surrounded by the overwhelming landscape of the Dolomites. Since 1978, he has been travelling all around the globe to meet children belonging to any ethnicity, religion and culture, with the goal to boost their creativity.

Facing problems together makes them less demanding


"Because the main problem of our times is that we've lost togetherness!" Told me Duccio, one of the curators.


Tell me about it.


Technology is a great thing, but modern society is driving people to live increasingly alone, less needy of each other and therefore less keen to establish relationships.


Paradoxically, now that I live in London, I feel weird when I come back home and I see what's like the life in small villages. Locals barely close their frontdoors, always wave at each other, when they shop if they don't have the change they'll pay some time later on, they know they'll find their car if they forget it open, and so on and so forth.


Of course in cities like London this is not possible (please don't leave your frontdoor open!), but socializing is generally more difficult, unless you're drunk.


So, Walter Kostner and his young team hit the road and work on boosting creative thinking through these comics strips that suggest an easier way to face reality.

A new religion?


The goal of this travelling exhibition, titled "Tesori Tra Noi" (Treasures among us) is to introduce an innovative learning method that gives paramount importance to personal creativity in order to reinvent the way people interact with each other.


The strips themselves, although aimed at children, are by not means easy and require a guide, who normally wears a colourful bow tie. I don't watch TV, so I've particularly appreciated the strip titled "A new religion", that implicitly suggests to go out and enjoy real life experiences.

A team of experts in the learning and artistic fields journeys throughout Europe to meet as many people as they can, in the hope to help children to relate and establish new ways of communication. I truly wish them the best of the achievements.



All strips are courtesy of interactive exhibition "Tesori Tra Noi".

Italy and women's body

Italy is home to beautiful peintures and sculptures, countless scientific discoveries came out from Italian minds, the creativity of Italian people is renowned and museums all over the world are studded with Italian masterpieces. So what’s happening to the Belpaese cultural scene?

I’ve been living outside Italy for four years now, in London for two, I’ve travelled throughout Europe and South America and, although I deem other societies by no means faultless, I have never found in any country such a poor mainstream culture.

Without going as far as Michelangelo’s times, only watching tv shows broadcast in the ‘60s in the Italian tv, it’s possible to appreciate the difference between then and now. Today’s shows are embarrassing: dancers can’t dance, singers are mediocre, shows are not challenging or educative, anchormen (and women) only work if surrounded by semi-naked young girls who, by accepting to be humiliated the way they are, show zero self-esteem.

One of the most astonishing aspects of today’s Italian culture is that a talented person must be physically attractive, otherwise they have no chance to emerge and carry on with the future they have studied for. Yes, studied, because unfortunately this principle seems to apply to tv shows as well as the Parliament, recently become house of any sort of showgirl.

This, far from ensuring high quality programmes, is undermining Italian cultural vivacity and society, and is aimed at causing general mental laziness. This video introduces very well the topic of how women’s body is used to attract audience.

I don’t want to give the wrong impression that this is Italy today: this is mainstream, national media in Italy today. I have lived in Rome for seven years and, while the tv (public and private) was already leading towards the current widespread ignorance, all throughout the city there were many exhibitions, independent theatre pieces, challenging open-air shows and concerts going on.

The main difference with national tv is that these kinds of artistic expressions require mental vivacity, active participation, going out and socialising, using all senses instead of passively staring at the nothing the tv gives us today.
 
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