CEnough designer posters covering a city and just one message: how beautiful it is to be a woman. How much strength and how much beauty. We are at Syracuse and the occasion is called MANIFESTA/king Shut up, actually speakan initiative sponsored by the Culture Department of the Municipality of Syracuse with the aim of enhancing female creative language and leaving a mark on society.
It starts on March 5th with the urban exhibition and continues on the 8th at 6pm inside the Montevergine artecontemporanea gallery (via Serafino Privitera, 6/8) of Ortigia with a futurist evening that includes moments linked to writing, poetry, acting and video. In the evening, in which the thirty professionals who have joined will be present – as well as the Chief Prosecutor of the Republic Sabrina Gambino – the vernissage of the posters will be held which recall the posters scattered around the city and which they will remain on display inside the gallery until April 2nd (Free admission).
March 8th and not only in Syracuse
International Women’s Day gives space to one hundred Italian and foreign artists to contaminate urban space and spark a debate on gender discrimination and abuse still rooted in society. From Eliana Adorno to Triana Ariè, from Myriam Laguia & Analia I Beltran Janés (Spain) to Evelina Schatz (Russia), from Margherita Davì to Adolfina De Stefani, from Margherita Levo Rosemberg to Shobha (Letizia Battaglia’s daughter), from Sonja Streck (Germany) in Feueu Tola.
LETIZIA BATTAGLIA © SHOBHA
«We would like to raise public awareness about the abuse of women’s image in the media, promoting an open dialogue on gender equality through culture and economic independence”, specifies Marilena Vita, creator of the project, as well as artistic director of Montevergine artecontemporanea and general secretary of Nuova AICA Italia (International Association of Art Critics). «There is an urgency today more than ever to address a problem that is well-rooted in various daily areas, from the home to school, from the workplace to social media to advertising, characterized by the dictatorship of fake beauty and male language», he adds Vita, board member of AICA International, Paris.
Manifesta/re
Manifesta is a European biennial of contemporary art that is organized every two years in a different location. Here, combined with the ending RE, it acquires the meaning of manifesting: that is, demonstrating through the language of art in a city that will be invaded by posters inspired by The city of ladiesa text written in 1404-1405 by the first professional writer in history, Christine de Pizan.
It is the story of a visionary fortified city, inhabited only by women – queens, warriors, poets, scientists – challenging the clichés and symbols of the traditional male dominance of the time. As in de Pizan’s book, today women demand a safe city – as a metaphor for society – that respects their ideas. Almost Dante-like guided by three ladies – Reason, Rectitude and Justice – the author builds a city also inhabited by ordinary women who with their courage have sacrificed themselves for a better society.
As in the book, the streets of the historic center of Syracuse also become an ideal place to give life to a necessary message of sisterhood tout court: in the posters the bodies, affections and impulses linked to the female world are confronted with photography, painting, graphics, embroidery, collage. «It is women who suffer the hardships of increasingly less safe cities. We don’t want to be brave, we want to be free. Every woman’s right is to live her life feeling safe in a society that supports her choices. We want to remember him by telling through art one of the greatest female talents, the ability to be reborn in the face of difficulties that instead seem impossible”, concludes Vita.
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