teatro del silenzio 2009

Press conference 17-12-2008. Museo Piaggio, Pontedera.

Today is a day to celebrate when artistic ideas are united and blended to delight spectators. Our task is to communicate with the public and with the world in order to convey identifiable values. Music has its own special mouthpieces but we are restricted to chance meetings or to fortunate collaborations that are multimedial in every sense of the word so this is why we would like to express our warmest gratitude to all those who have enabled and helped us to express our ideas!

So far on our journey through Italy we have stopped off at various places with Lajatico until now being the point of departure and arrival, in some way being connected to the theatre of silence and these primitive lands where old and archetypical ideas originated.

It was with "Segnali elementari" in 2005 that the first impression, the first stroke of colour was applied. The basic elements of daily life that often unfortunately are overlooked were represented disguised as brightly coloured signs.

As the 2005/06 festivites approached the Madonna and Christ Child came to Assisi, an interpretation that the monks really loved. Using simple shapes and local colours traditionally associated with the Madonna as can be seen in the colours used by Giotto in the Basilica itself, a stately metaphor of the concept of woman, the expression of continuity and renewal. Elevated by Divine Grace she wears the crown of the Seven Virtues and, winged like an angel stands for the mediator between heaven and earth...The Christ Child at Assisi represents life, the joy with which he guards the light and brings peace....

At the end of 2007 a long period of work culminated in the "Via della seta", a very involving work that welcomed everyone who came to the City, emanating a strong sense of colour and form. The colours used were still local primary ones chosen from a restricted range but chosen precisely because they were the most expressive. The same can be said of the shapes that were derived from simple geometrical ones and combined with one another. The meanings once again sought to revive memories of our origins and destinies, of where our daily behaviour comes from and of what it is formed.

And now we have returned to Lajatico to have the opportunity of creating a scene design for this wonderful old place. Setting and action are drawn together for a concert performed by Andrea Bocelli who originally came from Lajatico. The concert calls for a special scene design to enhance the setting, to provide food for thought, to decorate the rough-hewn stones of the theatre and to provide something truly memorable not only from an aesthetic viewpoint but for the feelings that will be stirred from the combination of visual and meaning, the whole enhanced by the melodious music.

My work has always been original, "Segnali elementari" is based on a painting executed in ‘64. My expressive forms have nothing to do with modern or contemporary art, I have never used existing works as models. However I am captivated and inspired by the work of Piero della Francesca, Giotto and Cimabue all of whom used elements of daily 15th century life, symbols of the Romanesque and Gothic periods, stylised in appearance because simple and clear through the ages. I have looked to the origins of artistic expression when colours were few, strong and expressive.

Fifteen years of work in the area of educational theory, working with children of all ages and also with their parents, discovering and providing them with solutions that have been as helpful to them as to myself so as to be able to better convey what truly matters and changes the concept of life has deepened my knowledge of people's hopes and needs. This was the starting point of my desire to provide areas for public use with vivacious designs that involve all the senses.