Homo Mediterraneus
The intent of the work is visionary, lyric and, at the same time, social. By using his favourite material, boat woods worn out by the sea and come back to life for a metaphoric navigation in the future, the artist represents his vision, oscillating between hope and prophecy told through symbols. A large, circular salt surface recalls the value of an archetypal wisdom. In the middle, the protagonist: an “ideal man” personified by an anthropomorphic helm rising up from the salt, drained sea.
Behind him the man is overtopped by vertical, high and arched wooden elements, hyperbolic curves which symbolize coloured Mediterranean civilizations; in front of him, from the salt basement, the large table of a new alphabet emerges, arisen from the aesthetic elaboration of characters already present in the alphabets of the ancient Mediterranean civilizations. A common language to all the peoples inhabiting the Mare Nostrum, an alphabet which, in the imaginative world of the artist, provides a link of brotherhood and peace for overcoming the conflicts of civilization.
Return to the origins
The installation “Return to the origins” was created in summer 2009 for the Biennale M’Arte (a Tuscan art biennial). The bare trunk of a big tree, cut by the local authorities for reasons of security, constitutes the environmental premise of this intervention. As well as men who, at the end of their existential journey, come back to their countries of origin with the burden of their stories, also the
planking of the boats, after having served man, travelled by sea and ridden over hardship, comes back to nature embracing the tree, the earth mother.
Commemorative sculpture for emigrants
Commemorative scule commemorative sculpture to Migrants was conceived in 2006 to be made using the planks of the “floating wrecks” . Following the author’s will, it will have a limited, unpredictable, duration due to the wear and tear caused by the Elements of Nature. This temporariness is exactly the thematic linchpin irradiating his message, which can also be formulated as an equation: the end of the work’s life cycle will depend on the action of the Elements as well as the end of the humanitarian emergency will depend on the initiatives the Community of Nations will take. How long will these sea tragedies last? The work becomes an interpreter of this question arisen from the sensitive consciences of the civil society and it hopes for some supranational actions meeting the humanitarian imperative to make an end of this tragedies.
The apotropaic eyes – ancient symbols painted on the bows of the boats to protect sailors from the perils of the travel – are drawn from the “floating wrecks” and represent a warning indicating how these tragedies occur for all the world to see.
Towards the circus of this fluorescent civilization
towards this lighthouse of illusions
at night direct their escape
boats full of hopeful men.
They know the trafficker captain
holds Charon’s oar in his hand
they know off the Strait
waves are wandering graves decorated with foam
they know and go away
because staying is not more worthy than dying
