As seen in yesterday's post, art comes to our rescue even in darkest of times, bringing a smile to our faces or making us rediscover our humanity. This is the hope also behind an exhibition – entitled "Interaction Napoli 2022" – that kicked off yesterday at the cloister of the Santa Caterina a Formiello's church in Naples (until 17th September 2022).
The event features 28 international artists working with different mediums: visitors will therefore be able to walk around the cloister and enjoy digitally printed murals by Peter Halley, a charcoal and acrylic work integrating a soundscape by Laurie Anderson and canvases, sculptures and photographs by a variety of artists.
The centre-piece of this event is very symbolical, it is indeed a flaming heart by Joana Vasconcelos. Fans of the artist may remember that a similar heart was also integrated in one of the installations included in an exhibition that took place in 2019 in Venice.
In this case Vasconcelos' heart, a reference to Portugal's Heart of Viana, that had religious connotations and was connected in the 18th century with the cult of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, also hints at life, universal love, fraternity and friendship.
Vasconcelos' heart is made with cushions in several shades of red, fuchsia and purple and, monstrously beautiful, it seems to expand with tentacle-like arteries covered in sequins, fringes, crocheted elements and fabrics. The heart hangs underneath the central wooden structure built inside the cloister.
There is actually an interesting connection between textiles and this location: Ferdinand II turned the space into a wool mill and a factory that also produced military uniforms. Four hundred people used to work here and the wooden truss in the centre of the cloister was used to dry wool. The building was repurposed after the unification of Italy in 1861 as the orders of army uniforms stopped and the factory went bankrupt.
The structure was then restored in more recent years by the Made in Cloister Foundation that turned the space where wool used to be dried into the pulsating heart of the foundations' activities and the symbol of the restoration project.
The wooden structure looks like a relic from another time and with the big and pulsating heart shinining underneath, it assumes a metaphorical meaning, almost telling us that, even under debris and rubble, there can be radiant hope. This soft, giant, expanding heart can also be interpreted as the answer to the horrors of the war in Ukraine.
"Interaction Napoli" focuses indeed on the possibility to spark a conversation not just between artists of different ages and backgrounds working with a variety of materials and techniques to present their complex and varied visions of the world, but to create a dialogue between different people encouraging us all to come together, fostering a culture of collaboration, connectedness and inclusion.
