I have a friend couple in Val d'Agri called Genaro Napoletano and Valentina Marsicovetere, Genaro is from Naples and Valentina is from Marsico Nuovo, I'm Not making this up, it's just as it's spelled and told. My maternal grandparents where from Marsico Nuovo too, they migrated in the 30's to Venezuela and never came back, but now here's the thing: two generations afterwards, an italo-venezuelan Figueredo with just relative ties to Marsico Nuovo is here too (for quite some time now) and we share a common goal and trait, we are determined to develop culture through creativity and to promote social interaction between the locality and the world and vice versa.
History and arts of rural people.
This has a very real promotional outcome for the town, kids from Bulgaria, Portugal, Spain and Greece came for 9 days to participate in a program entitled "H.A.R.P" which stands for "History and Art of Rural People"... Then again: I'm not making this up, It's as it reads... This project is an obvious win-win for the locality and the international community.
This European Union's Erasmus + project had many good consequences and significant teachings and experiences. I was proposed to come for an activity for one afternoon and I ended staying and helping me all the rest of the days they stayed. I was given the opportunity to share my experience and now-how as an artist to European people from the perspective of an international artist that creates but also stays and promotes the cultural development locally.
IT's a MIRACLE! San Gianuario meets San Gianuario.
I made a sort of seminar with the European kids where I explained how do I use my art and new technologies of communication like social networks to make human rights militancy. I also spoke to them on how I introduced modern art to the very traditional and conservative town of Marsico Nuovo in particular and to Basilicata in general. We made a piece together that consisted in making all the participants stamp their hands on a canvas to then apply the stencil of San Gianuario (Marsico Nuovo's patron) on top of all the prints. This stands as a symbol on many layers that we then decided to take to the church to show to the local priest in a sort of "procession" of kids coming from all over Europe to build something together with the local culture from an international perspective.
So we head on to the cathedral and there's where the miracle happen! For the first time in 8 years I've been living here one of my modern art pieces depicting the local and traditional old symbols entered the premises of the church officially and it was permitted (to my grand surprise) to display the piece alongside the relic of the real San Gianuario! Needless to say this is a first and very meaningful milestone for me as an artist and for the town's history and cultural development and perpetuity.
