Ci am the words. Which give shape to thought and reality. “Irresponsible” that is “people who have no responsibility for the war, for the massacres”, “unconscious”, that is, “without that fear that silences”, “provocateurs”, that is, “individuals who provoke, ask questions, urge change”. There are places, shops, university classrooms, offices, supermarkets. Empty yourself. The people who usually live there have left them; to take to the streets. And then there are the actions. Which in this case gave shape to a short film entitled, precisely, Irresponsible (online from 28 December) produced by Emergency together with the advertising agency Ogilvy.
Irresponsiblethe film produced by Emergency
The movie is a concrete invitation to think about the end of the war. To pronounce the right words for this to happen, an invitation to make your voice heard for peace. It starts from a scenario that we have seen in recent months: the spontaneous, global mobilization of those who no longer accept to remain silent.
The short film “Irresponsible”.
Emergency chose as a starting point the epithets shown within those demonstrations, in the signs, in the slogans, to overturn their meaning, to create an ode to all those who peacefully make themselves heard for peace.
We asked Simonetta Gola, communications director of Emergency to tell us what drove the humanitarian organization founded by Gino Strada to engage in this project the actor Elio Germano wanted to lend his body and voice.
Simonetta Gola, communications director of Emergency.
The idea of returning adjectives used to discredit those calling for peace to their original meaning is subversive. Why did an organization like EMERGENCY decide to also engage in semantics?
I don’t know if it’s subversive, but when you say that those who demonstrate for peace are “irresponsible”, a “provocateur”, an “extremist” you are trying to delegitimize a behavior and an idea that should belong to everyone at this moment. Before getting to the bodies, war is always fought with words: while they normalize war, words criminalize those who reject it. From our point of view, those who accept that war is the only possible response are irresponsible, those who exacerbate the conflict are provocative, those who refuse to talk to the enemy are extremists. I would define those who ask for peace, however, as “realists”: they reject war because they know that it is first of all the suffering of other human beings, wounded, refugees, destroyed cities. And today it is urgent to be realistic because we are running the enormous risk of entering it directly.
Empty spaces that talk about rights
The film captures environments emptied of workers who in recent months have decided to take to the streets to demonstrate against the policies that have abandoned the diplomatic path to choose the language of war. Was it the recent political attacks on the right to strike that convinced you to take this approach?
No, the attacks on the right to strike are serious, of course, but they come within a broader context which for months has repressed participation even before dissent. And it happens all over the world. Despite this, in recent months we have seen huge demonstrations for peace, the “No kings” protests (in American cities against Donald Trump’s policies, ed), the marches against violence against women. Schools, offices, empty factories are the image of people who leave their daily lives to claim a vision of the world, or at least to raise their voices against choices in which they do not recognize themselves. Those empty spaces, in the video, speak: rights – peace – are a collective responsibility.
Artist Ivan’s installation for Emergency marks another chapter in the organization’s commitment to the arts. What are the next steps and objectives?
In addition to Ivan’s “The Ark” project which is located in the garden of the EMERGENCY headquarters in Milan, this year we developed a project with “Cheap” entitled “Against the War” which from the Palazzo delle Exhibition in Rome has been posted in 6 cities and now travels on an entire train of the Rome metro. They are both part of our R1PUD1A campaign (www.ripudia.it) which is inspired by article 11 of our Constitution. We are working on a public art project for next year too because art, when in shared space, can become a tool for dialogue: it creates questions, reveals conflicts. In this sense, for Emergency art is a tool for participating in public debate. We treat the victims of war, of course, but we also want to question the narrative that makes it possible.