2019 Certosa e Museo di San Martino, Chiesa delle Donne, Naples
Materials: 250 kg. of rice, 20 kg. of flour, flowers (Roses – Dianthus – Hydrangea – Agapanthus – Phalaenopsis – Polianthes tuberosa), perfumed essences
Dimensions: m 9,5 x 9,5
my name is … il mio nome è …
Know the other and their reality
In Naples, in a marvelous and evocative setting, invited by Polo Museale della Campania, Maria Dompè develops, through her art, the second chapter of a human narrative. After the debut at the Macro Museum in Rome where Dompè gave voice to seven immigrant women, now at the Certosa di San Martino, she tackles another aspect of the epochal phenomenon of immigration: the story of three families torn from their roots, either because of war or religious hatred. A quantity of suffering that can not be addressed by the present Italian hospitality system. Due to Dompè’s sensitivity, this superficial treatment reveals itself as incomprehensible, in comparison to the welcoming tradition of the Mediterranean spirit. This assumption leads to a commitment, social, cultural, and informative, aimed at compensating for misleading information.
For a hope of change in the future, correct information must be given to the best possible interlocutors: young students. In a historical moment when generational alternation is blocked by the defense of personal privilege, Dompè, against the current, involves a large number of new recruits (writers, critics, actors, photographers, videographers …).
With the following words, the artist explains the motivation for her programmatic preferences: “Confronting the issue of migration, I had in mind a non-biased, apolitical approach, involving above all the authentic genuineness of the human seed, contained in youth. Students, unencumbered by prejudices, actuate natural empathic connections, and with daily involvement, understand and develop a “intimate communication, favoring the instinctive predisposition towards the other. Their energy has been contagious, fortifying, a fundamental cultural contribution. A “journey” all together, facing the truth about the hidden realities with a receptive approach, complicit and unconditional. I will no longer limit myself to defining them as “young” students, but indispensable collaborators and educated explorers of the soul “.
The artistic work that was designed for the place, with the intention of assisting and emphasizing the cultural and social message, evokes the essence of community and Mediterranean traditions. In fact it appears as an emblematic lace, a peculiar weave in the feminine memory, and it is the women Maria Dompè addresses due to their innate predisposition to understanding and tolerance (also the choice of the location: the Church of the Women, is not a coincidence). The design is made up of organic materials which are capable of guaranteeing the correct reuse, without disrespectful waste, because a work is alive when its constituent material is alive! This is the obvious manifesto of the artist. The careful chromatic study is conciliatory, the scent of flower essences is compelling, the reading of the stories (selected by the students and taken from the interviews with the families), emotionally moving: everything flows towards an incisive poetics, aimed at favoring an “encounter”.
True integration comes from sharing both religious and ethical values. With this conviction it is important to open the places of worship that are representative of the individual religions, to all the faithful of every creed. Only in this way could we understand the basic principle of solidarity, a forerunning concept for every correct human behavior. The Church of the Women of the Certosa di San Martino, with its intrinsic symbolic value, the day of its inauguration to the public, after many years of restoration, thanks to the event of Maria Dompè, opened its doors to knowledge, to dialogue, with families asylum seekers from different ethnic groups and Muslim religions. A fertile experience that opens the mind to the confrontation with the “new” that breaks in and cannot and cannot be concealed for a long time. In fact, it represents an unstoppable evolutionary cycle, to be satisfied without unnecessary hindrances, capturing instead the positive energy that it carries inside, able to renew us all. By removing any residual “dust” from the heart, as Maria Dompè teaches.
The reading of the texts during the event was by C. Bocchino, D. Rea, U. Salvato (Ass. Putéca Celidònia).
Pierre