May We Live Interesting Lives

This work entitled May we live Interesting lives – a paraphrase of the 2019 Biennale’s title “May we live in interesting times” – was realised in 2020 by using an emergency blanket placed on a 200 cm x 100 cm wooden board, a paper print of Massimo Sestini’s famous photo of migrants’ rescue boat applied as collage, “red blood” acrylic paint, and a strip of black painted wood separating the two boards (and symbolically the lives of these people.)

It was a pitch/study work for a project I was supposed to do in collaboration with an Italian ONLUS working with migrant kids coming to Europe and Italy from war scenarios. The idea was to teach the kids the collage technique and make them realize a series of collages depicting their experiences, fears, joy, hopes, and then sell their and my works with a charity auction.

In my representation, I tried to return in the most essential terms the migrants’ odyssey, leaving their country towards anything better of a sure death (real or spiritual).