Full curriculum

Delta Centre for Art and Culture and TERI VOLINI – curriculum updated to 30 January 2006 (translated from the Italian)

Painter, engraver and performer, she works in Milan (via Clitumno 11), in Potenza (via Adriatico 20) and in Castelmezzano (piazza S. Maria dell’Olmo 3).

In Milan, a permanent exhibition of her paintings in via Marco d’Oggiono 2 can be visited by appointment, on +39 339 2414133.

Poet, she foresees a time in which art and life coincide, and lets herself be inspired by Emily Dickinson, Marina Tsvetaeva, Violeta Parra, Pablo Neruda, Georg Trakl, Guillaume Apollinaire, F. García Lorca, Robert Graves, Rainer M. Rilke, Walt Whitman, Stanislao Nievo, Alejandro Jodorowsky….

A scholar of foreign cultures, languages and literatures, especially French, English, Spanish and German, she lived for long periods in France – in Grenoble, Lyon and Paris – where she attended courses in civilisation, art and theatre at the Sorbonne, later graduating with a thesis on the theatre of Jean Anouilh…

As a linguist she produced, among other things, an unpublished translation of Alessandro Manzoni’s Lettre à monsieur Chauvet.

She is carrying out a study in linguistic re-semanticisation: starting from words to bring about a change in reality, or trying to set the upside-down world back on its feet… see the articles in the Journal at the Delta Centre for Art and Culture.

After important and demanding personal life experiences, her dedication to art took full shape in the 1980s, as described in the publication L’Arte come esperienza fondamentale (see publications).

She has presented more than 70 solo painting exhibitions in regional and national venues, including Potenza, Castelmezzano, Pietrapertosa, Metaponto, Bari, Salerno, Naples, Maratea, Rome, Padula, Milan, Brescia… and abroad, including Zurich, Winterthur, Nice, New York, Arles-en-Provence, London, Canterbury, Pré-Saint-Didier…

She has taken part in many group exhibitions, with considerable critical and public acclaim, receiving prizes and awards…

See paintings and various catalogues, available on request from the cultural centre.

She opened an art studio in Milan, staging several solo exhibitions, including a permanent one.

Her paintings and graphic works are held in public and private collections and appear in books and magazines of essays, poetry and fiction, in cultural dossiers and art catalogues.

She has been honoured by hundreds of press reviews, radio and television features, presentations in magazines and authentic critical and poetic texts, including those of Cesare Vivaldi, Franco Solmi, Elio Mercuri, Yves Tarlet, Keith Corbett-Jones, Giorgio Galli, Gabriella Parca, Pierre Restany, Max Clamour, Odile Rio, Maïté Dubocquet, Lucio Tufano, Cinzia Zungolo, P. Totaro-Ziella, Mimma Pasqua, Ezio Alberione, Maria Grazia Longhi, Manuela Stefani, Stanislao Nievo and many others, whose friendship and esteem she is proud of, and whom she apologises for not being able to name all.

Images and texts devoted to her work have been published many times – free of charge, as a sign of recognition of her work – in magazines, books, newspapers and catalogues; among the most recent, with beautiful images, La Nuova Basilicata, Airone, Art Diary, Flash Art, That’s Art, Basilicata Mondo and others…

She is president of the Delta Centre for Art and Culture, a non-profit cultural organisation whose basic aim is to promote a culture that is neither superficial nor conformist. Based in Potenza, Milan and Rome, it organises courses, talks, poetry readings, screenings, painting and photography exhibitions, symbolic actions and participatory art.

She produces art films and documentaries.

She is an editor of the journal Donne e Ragazzi Casalinghi, published in Milan.

An essayist, she writes on art and culture and publishes with Delta Edizioni.

She is a member of the founding committee of Opera Prima, for the creation of a contemporary art gallery in Potenza.

She collaborates with Legambiente and WWF and, with research, talks and symbolic actions… creates works that can stimulate indispensable reflection on a new relationship with nature…

She wishes to communicate the urgent sense of connection among all beings, and to activate a new respect for the planet, perceived no longer as an object to dominate and exploit, but as Mother Earth, generator and nurturer of all living beings…

In 2002 she began the study and practice of Mudras and the writing of Mandalas, as a meditation on Oneness – the perception of being one with other beings and the Universe – and the daily activation of this awareness. See performances.

In 2005, as a cultural organiser and president of the Delta Centre for Art and Culture, she announced the creation of an important Enterprise, open to all those who wish to become entrepreneurs of a great Work: the Work of Peace.

By joining this Enterprise free of charge, one can instantly become a Worker of Peace, practise being a builder of the new possible worlds, and try in the field to act as a sower of reconciliation and brotherhood.

In keeping with this statement of intent, Teri Volini and the Delta Centre aim to activate awareness and practice of interreligiosity and interculturality, seen no longer as obstacles – as throughout historical time – but rather as a driving force and an enrichment, personally and socially.

As a symbolic traveller and performer, in 1999 she began a path – both real and metaphorical – entitled The Dance of the Rope, which will involve several countries of the Mediterranean, its protagonist being a Red Ribbon, each time a builder of symbols, which it draws in different forms and on a large scale: an archetypal symbol in itself, of powerful evocative force… See: Performances, Publications

She promotes specific research on hidden or denied cultures.

Within southern Italian culture, she cultivates the study, preservation and dissemination of Lucanian traditions – customs, costumes, rites – in connection with unconventional historical, archaeological and anthropological research.

As a scholar of ancient civilisations, she promotes in particular the study of the archaic prehistoric period, with a view to recovering and revaluing the Feminine and Nature, in line with the most recent, revolutionary discoveries of great avant-garde archaeologists such as Marija Gimbutas, James Mellaart, Sigfried Giedion, Jeannine Davis-Kimball… and scholars such as Armanda Guiducci, Vicki Noble, Mary Daly, Riane Eisler… (see the bibliography in the publication Il Sentiero della Luce).

She promotes Participatory Art, encouraging active, playful participation in the creation of the Work of Art (see all the performances and participatory art).

She redefines Textile Art, both metaphorically – as the weaving of new relationships – and concretely, as a stimulus to the revival of manual skills (arts and crafts). See textile art.

She thinks of Art as an activator of knowledge and awareness… whether in painting or in other expressive languages, such as poetry, installations, performances and symbolic actions…

She believes in an Art that is also healing therapy, a valid drive towards self-improvement, something alive and active in promoting important processes of renewal and rediscovery…

See the web pages on the various subjects and the publication L’Arte come esperienza fondamentale, Delta Edizioni, available from the cultural centre – terivolini.art@gmail.com

Painting

Teri Volini has not looked at her beloved mountains with the eye of reality or verisimilitude, but with the eyes of memory, dream and nostalgia, superimposing on the landscape as it is what it evoked to her astonished gaze as a child and adolescent, and so peopling her works on paper with memories and ghosts: objects, animals, faces, flowers… relived in colours at once warm and impalpable, floating on a dense web of black lines, as if from the lead strips of a stained-glass window lit up with light, or untangling themselves from it as from a spider’s web.

A web, indeed, meant to capture the past and harness fantasy; to ensure that colours and forms, despite the sentimental upheaval, stand firm and steady, perched on the edge of Art Informel but without falling into it…

from the text by Cesare Vivaldi, Rome

Teri’s painting leads us into the order of enchanted gardens or the Elysian Fields. Solar moons dazzle; the shafts of light of milky ways crossed by birds, flowers, fish, corals and… a goddess capture us.

Among the seaweed and the swarms of bees, beside the broom and the irises, beside and around everything there are stars; stars that draw everything into their implosion: theirs is a motionless effusion, a tender, playful whirl that produces in the viewer the sweetest effect of sideration.

In their firmament everything is rising, or falling, or remains suspended in a flow of dizzying proximity; every figure is a heteroclite whole, promiscuous, contiguous, manifold; every being opens to us the image of its communion with the others, every fragment is a microcosm of chaotic fertility.

Its surface is the ground of a figurative and chromatic deflagration that makes everything throb, and everything has its own original way of presenting itself – panic, I would say – its own timbre of voice: let us listen to them speak their special language, let us grasp the richness of tones, the colours and their harmonies, the lyricism…

from the text by M. Grazia Longhi, Milan

MAIN PAINTING CYCLES and first presentations

• The Enchanted Mountain – Cesare Vivaldi
• Gardens of Sea and Land – Cinzia Zungolo
• Born under the Sign of Pisces – Elio Mercuri
• The Rhythm of the Spikenard and the Star – Lucio Tufano
• The Colour of Women – Gabriella Parca
• The Awakening of the Goddess – M.G. Longhi, P. Totaro-Ziella
• The Dance of the Rope – Stanislao Nievo

See paintings and publications.

The language of art

A most powerful means
to express without any mediation
the search for harmony and balance,
love for Mother Earth,
respect for nature in its sacredness and beauty,
the sense of connection with all living beings and the whole universe.

The artist speaks without words;
colours and the forms created speak for her,
saying, insistently:
we are Beauty, Song, Magic.
We are the Splendour of the small flower and of the great cosmic immensity.
We are Mystery,
what is wild in us, what cannot be quantified,
what we all have in common:
Blood, Breathing, the Beating of the Heart, Sprouting,
the Waxing and Waning of the Moon,
the rotation of the Earth, Birth, Death, Rebirth.

Thanks to this message, something moves within us;
we begin to remember what we had forgotten;
the awareness returns
of our indispensable participation
in universal life.
Through an intensely inner work
that often happens without our knowing,
we remember and re-member ourselves.
The magic of Art is such
that it makes even our rationality superfluous.
We then give the greatest priority to perception, sensations, feelings,
thus rediscovering the wholeness of our being human.
And all that remains is for us too, together with the Artist,
to pay homage to the Muse
who has touched our hearts as well.

Teri Volini

From the paintings to The Dance of the Rope

Participatory art – PERFORMANCES, INSTALLATIONS, SYMBOLIC ACTIONS, VIDEOS and EXHIBITIONS, 1998–2005

1998

1. The Awakening of the Goddess – exhibition of paintings, Milan, at the invitation of the Sardinian Cultural Centre
2. The Awakening of the Goddess – Potenza, Cappella dei Celestini, under the patronage of the Municipality of Potenza, Department of Culture
3. Archaeological and symbolic investigation of the glyphs of the Ager Cuneatus in the Gallipoli Cognato forest in Basilicata. Comparative research with archetypal symbols on textile finds and the beginnings of writing.
4. Beginning of the study of re-semanticisation
5. Beginning of the interview with Rosaria Santoro, by Antheòs, on the customs and costumes of Basilicata and in particular of Castelmezzano
6. Study of prehistoric civilisations: archaeology, Gimbutas, textile traditions (Dario Valcarenghi), Cretan civilisation – a study carried out at S. Maria di Ricadi, Calabria, at the time of the great eruption of Etna, which she witnessed.

1999

7. The Dance of the Rope – presentation of the painting and the virtual exit of the Red Ribbon, spring 1999 (text in the publication Il Ritmo del Fuoco)
8. Video: The Awakening of the Goddess. A poetic tale in images of her painting path, inspired by the latest series of works devoted to Nature, its sacredness and beauty… with music by Tangerine Dream and a text freely adapted from Robert Graves, voice by G. Valente.
9. The Rhythm of Fire, Monti Sartorius, Etna, May 1999 (performances). The Performance “The Rhythm of Fire”, carried out on Etna at the time of the Waxing Moon in May, is the first stage of a journey, both real and spiritual, which through the Red Ribbon will connect several countries of the Mediterranean (Italy, Greece, Egypt, Turkey, Malta…). The Serpent drawn here by the Red Ribbon symbolises – as it emerges after a long sleep and periodically sheds its skin – the Awakening of dormant Vital Energy and the need for transformation within the continuity of Life…
10. Imaginifica: daily weaving of the 28 triangular Textile Sculptures, for a new look at the feminine, 1–28 August
11. Video: The Rhythm of Fire. The tale in images of the “journey” of the Red Ribbon on Etna, the vision of the volcanic mountain in the fullness of its terrible beauty, related – through a visual metaphor – to the symbolic action carried out by the artist and the 60 participants.
12. The Invisible Real – The Web, Lucanian Little Dolomites – the Enchanted Mountain of Castelmezzano, Basilicata, September 1999 (performances). In the harsh, fascinating landscape of the Lucanian Mountains, a great Web of Red Thread of about 10,000 square metres was woven between two rocky peaks… Built in the spirit of Land Art – understood not as the artist superimposing on and manipulating Nature, but as an empathetic, synergetic action with it – through its fleeting beauty it symbolises the search for harmony and balance with Mother Earth, and the renewal of the respect for her that human beings seem to have forgotten. In this way the Artist can be the catalyst of new awareness.
13. Publications in the journal Donne e Ragazzi Casalinghi
14. Video: The Invisible Real – The Web. The tale in images of the Journey of the Red Ribbon on the Lucanian Little Dolomites, the building of the Web of red thread between the rocky peaks, its beauty, its destruction by a storm: a metaphor of life and its transience, which nonetheless does not prevent us from travelling it with courage and joy.
15. Beginning of comparative research on cultures, the Veil and worlds.
16. The Caress of the Goddess – poetic action / installation, Capo Vaticano, Tropea, Calabria, October (performances). A declaration of love for Mother Earth and the beauty inherent in all her manifestations, even in a blade of grass: the artist becomes the link between her and the living… As Rilke reminds us, perhaps true eternity does not belong to the works of human beings, however monumental – all of them, even the grandest, are destined to fall into ruin; true eternity belongs to the rose which, despite its extreme fragility, is reborn again and again, for ever…
17. Publications: L’Arte come esperienza fondamentale; Il Ritmo del Fuoco; Il Reale Invisibile. La Ragnatela I – L’opera

2000

18. Publication: Il Reale Invisibile. La Ragnatela II – La ricerca

19. The Monument to the Unknown Woman – concept and graphic design

20. The Dance of the Rope – multi-purpose cultural event, Biblioteca Nazionale, Potenza, Basilicata, April–May 2000. Exhibition of paintings and photographs, spiral installation with photos and Red Ribbon, screening of the videos produced by the cultural centre, educational itinerary, presentation of the Delta Edizioni publications… Presentation and friendly presence of Stanislao Nievo. “…a ritual in search of harmony” that goes beyond the boundaries it started from and takes up their blurred design, as if it were the soul of a very ancient reality that does not change its register but has always hidden it beneath the veil of stones and earthquakes, waterfalls and hurricanes… (from Stanislao Nievo’s presentation). Guided educational itinerary for middle-school pupils, in collaboration with the Potenza Education Office (performances)

21. The Monument to the Unknown Woman – presentation of the project to institutions in Basilicata, including the Equal Opportunities Commission, the Municipality and the Province of Potenza…

22. Publications in the journal Donne e Ragazzi Casalinghi

23. Off Loom – Textile Art, art off the loom, Rome, May 2000, former juvenile prison of San Michele a Ripa. Energy cannot be held back or compressed for long… It bursts out like lava, overcoming every constraint… – installation with the Etna Red Ribbon in a cell of the former prison; video installation with continuous projection of the two short films The Rhythm of Fire – The Invisible Real. The Web

24. Publication in the online catalogue www.italianmuseum.com/creativity

25. The Invisible Real – The Web: presentation of the Web project to institutions in Basilicata, including the Municipality and the Province of Potenza…

26. Spring of the Arts, multi-purpose event organised by Opera Prima, for a contemporary art gallery, Provincial Museum of Potenza, 4–30 June 2000: video installation with continuous projection of the two short films The Rhythm of Fire and The Invisible Real – The Web; performance with the Red Ribbon in the museum. Breath Art, Soft Art: I would also imagine building an even “lighter” Web, woven at the same time with shimmering luminosity, made only of countless mirroring elements mounted on a thread invisible from a distance: in this case the result would perfectly reflect the title of the Installation, “The Invisible Real”. Its fascination would be enhanced by the light of the Sun by day and of the Moon by night… By day, against the ever-changing sky behind the Work, the glitter would resemble the thousand reflections of the Sun on the sea. By night, the Moon would make this special weave stand out with myriad sparks against the velvet background of the dark sky. (performances)

27. Publication in Opera Prima’s virtual museum

28. Re-weaving the Web, Macchia Romana school camp, Potenza, June 2000 – in Participatory Art, with the public attaching the light and sound elements by hand: the citizens were invited through the local press to take an active part in building the structure. The structure was rebuilt, this time with a much stronger Red Ribbon made specially… Each person, tying a knot, attaching a little bell, connects directly with the air, the sun, the moon, the stars… At evening, the Web becomes the net holding in its invisible mesh the stars of the firmament and the Moon itself – or fireflies on a beautiful summer evening… Each refraction of light in the deep night recalls the distant pulsing splendour of a Supernova, whose light reaches us when it no longer exists; together, the silent sizzle would chime with that of the mysterious constellations. (performances)

29. The Web in an urban setting, Passaggi a Nord-Ovest, City of Biella, 16 June – 30 July 2000. National art event, at the invitation of the Department of Culture of Biella – Fondazione Michelangelo Pistoletto and Manifesto 0. – Action in participatory art: aerial installation of the Web over a city square, as a light and sound sculpture, in collaboration with Antheòs and the Biella fire brigade; – video projection of the short film “The Web” in Basilicata… In the morning, when the rising sun turns the mountains blue as they slowly emerge from a light translucent mist, the glitter would recall the moist splendour of dewdrops caught by the dawn… In Biella the web archetype is highlighted as “the net stretched over humans”… Recovering the sense of this connection – strong though invisible – reminds us of the need to take great care of this structure that unites us all, and all of us with the universe, so that it is not damaged or destroyed further… (performances)

30. Publication of the work in the official catalogue of the City of Biella

31. Arcana – multi-purpose event: exhibition of paintings; passage to the Red Ribbon and The Dance of the Rope; construction of the pyramidal sculpture Arcana: a red spire 6 metres high, in iron, wood, fabric and clay… a multi-sensory experience, guided tour… Nova Siri Marina, 9–19 August 2000. Municipality of Nova Siri, Associazione Culturale Sud. Work built with Paolo Santarsiere, in collaboration with Rocco Caldarola and Giulio Orioli. “Beyond the heartbeat, I entered my heart…” (N.B.) “Following the path of the Red Ribbon… the slow search in the darkness of the mind… led me to a living organism, pulsing with energy. Contact with the water cleared my gloomy thoughts… with great tension I decided to go in. I was inside the organism! Life? Death? Certainly birth. Then the organism gave birth to me again, and I am ready once more for a new search… a beautiful sensation, emotion, tension…” (Angela Pergola) For other testimonies see Arcana.

32. Publication in the online catalogue www.siris.it

33. Pure Energy – installation with Teri Volini’s Red Ribbon and a stone sculpture by Giulio Orioli, Nova Siri Marina, September 2000

34. Mantèion – performance-installation in honour of the prophetess Manto and of all the Sibyls…, Capo Vaticano, Tropea, October 2000 (performances)

35. Message in the Bottle, part I, The finding, Tyrrhenian Sea – Santa Maria di Ricadi (Vibo Valentia), October 2000. Installation with clear glass bottles with cork stoppers and small red scrolls… Photographic exhibition. Let us send a message in a bottle to rediscover and communicate the lost sense of connection with other beings and with nature… (performances)

36. The Red Ribbon on I. Lanfredini’s Labyrinth, Fiumara d’Arte, Castel di Tusa (Messina), November 2000. RED symbolises both vital Energy in general and the Blood flowing in the bodies of living beings, reminding us of the value of, and respect for, every existence… It also has clear connections with the Blood of the female cycle, which even today is perceived as taboo – not in the original sense of the word, meaning “sacred”, important, connected with the periodic regeneration of life, but as something scandalous, or at least improper, “better not talked about”. …This Red, which flows cyclically, marking the rhythm of female procreative potential, is the only Blood in the world that does NOT flow from a living body because of illness or violence, but simply to signal the monthly “renewal” and the potential of life. (performances and publications)

37. The Red Ribbon on A. Di Palma’s Mediterranean Energy, Fiumara d’Arte, Motta d’Affermo (Messina), November 2000. The colour trilogy of white, red and black, present universally in all cultures, even in traditional costumes… leads to countless considerations, including those relating to the life cycle and to the cycle of female creativity… This “naturally” leads us to connect woman with the cosmic cycle, since the female monthly period corresponds to that of the Moon and is measured by it; the very word “menstruation” has its root in MENS, measure, and indeed in ancient times the Moon was the real measure of time: there were 13 months in a year, that is, 13 moons… (performances and publications)

38. Stone Document, experiment-action, Castel di Lucio (Messina), November 2000. In the Holy Scriptures, it is on two tablets of stone that God engraved the Commandments, and on stone slabs the names of the dead are engraved, as a perpetual memory… Over this sacred value of stone as a direct bearer of messages lies an even greater one: that of stone itself as message, without anything being written on it. In this sense it fully takes on the meaning of McLuhan’s statement, “the medium is the message”: a powerful message is written in the stone itself, beyond whatever form it may have. This is possible because stone is a fundamental archetypal symbol. The richness of meanings of stone comes from the fact that they have gradually been layered over centuries and millennia, so that it has come to have a potentially infinite narrative programme. (performances; see also research)

39. The Red Boat, symbolic action, Scoglio della Galea, Santa Maria di Ricadi, November 2000. The inescapability of human destiny – and the inevitable transience of all that exists – if meditated on and accepted, allows us to act more serenely and rightly, building or rediscovering, in the time we are granted, something beautiful, something “well made”… (performances)

40. Textura, textile art, participatory art – beginning of the work with the women of Castelmezzano (see participatory art). “Please send me a 60 x 60 cm square, woven in the technique you prefer (knitting, crochet, loom, cross-stitch, plaiting…), preferably in wool (or wool blend) and in red – a beautiful ruby red, wine red, blood red…; underneath, embroidered in white thread, your name and that of your mother or of whoever raised you.” Why this square? Because I want to form a long red strip (like the RED RIBBON with which I have already begun the journey The Dance of the Rope), but this time made by hand, by women, or by all those who consider important or wish to revalue the values connected with the “Feminine” (which I hope will be recognised and present in men too, overcoming prejudice and dichotomies): care, reflection, the search for harmony and beauty, “slowness”, the preservation of Nature and of life in all its forms, and so on… (see textile art, Textura)

41. ImaGINifica, the hidden beauty of the feminine – open-air installation on trees, with 28 textile sculptures, with gold, silver, antique silver, semi-precious stones, small medals, roses, almonds, various materials… Anna Purità park, Santa Maria di Ricadi, Calabria (textile art)

42. ImaGINifica, the hidden beauty of the feminine – open-air installation on a lawn, with 28 textile sculptures with gold, silver, antique silver, filigree, enamel, semi-precious stones, small medals, roses, almond shells and other materials, Anna Purità park, Santa Maria di Ricadi, Calabria

43. ImaGINifica, the hidden beauty of the feminine – open-air installation on sand, with 28 textile sculptures with gold, silver, antique silver, semi-precious stones, small medals, roses, almonds and other materials…, Scoglio della Galea beach, Santa Maria di Ricadi, Calabria

2001

52. Stone Document, sculpture-install-action and painful symbolic action, Potenza, piazza M. Pagano; preparation November–December 2000, realisation 8–28 January 2001, in collaboration with the Department of Culture of the Municipality of Potenza and Amnesty International. A transitory monument, but of great weight, in the heart of the city, for a deeper awareness of the importance of each person’s responsibility in the world economy of pain and violence… Art can awaken awareness in each of us, making us feel part of a whole in which to act positively. (performances; see also research)
53. An Artist with an apostrophe (“Un’Artista” – a woman artist), performance, talk, video projection. Brescia, 6 April, Istituto Magistrale Veronica Gambara.
54. The Invisible Real – The Web in Milan: presentation of the project to the Province of Milan
55. Out of the Cocoon – metamorphosis, “infaust-performance”, Spazio Liberamente, Milan, 8 April 2001. A symbolic action in participatory art, a metaphor of metamorphosis, that is, of the inner rebirth of each of us, a stimulus to transformation and deep renewal. An affirmation of the need for urgent change towards a lifestyle more respectful of all beings, human and not only… (performances)
56. Initiation with the Muses – symbolic action with the Muses in the net, Litha, Cascina Valgomio, Moncucco Torinese (AT), 24 June 2001, Summer Solstice. A collective open-air action with fire, dance and red ribbon.
57. Publication in AIRONE, July, of the work The Invisible Real – The Web: “The Lady in Red of Land Art”, text by Manuela Stefani.
58. Ri Vel Azione, performance-symbolic action in Body Art, Milan, various places, May–July 2001 – Wearing the Veil. Re-veiling oneself in order to: express solidarity with women oppressed by fundamentalisms of every kind – denied women, forced to wear the veil, forced into silence, forced into invisibility…; but also to highlight the scandalous persistence of a Veil that is invisible but present in our own culture too – the veil of conformism, the veil of unawareness, the veil of silence imposed on those who do not conform to the dominant culture. (performances; see also research and talks)
59. Vital energy and magnetism: performance with Marina Abramović, Milan, July 2001
60. Stone Document, install-action and symbolic action, Capo Vaticano, Tropea, 12–28 September 2001. A performance – installation – symbolic action in Participatory Art which, in the burning topicality of ever more dramatic world events, focuses on the importance and urgency of a different order of values, based on life and not on death. By building, with the involvement of the people, a stone structure-sculpture, the artist sets out to counter, by highlighting it, that normalisation of horror which leads human beings to indifference towards the pain and evil of the world… The date of its realisation – 11 September 2001 – is all the more significant since it confirms the premonitory energy of the Action, carried out at Capo Vaticano (the Cape of Prophecies), in addition to the interpretative and stimulating power that true art possesses. (performances)
61. Ri Vel Azione – living art in everyday experience: re-veiling oneself to lift the veil of ferocious patriarchy, but also that of our indifference and our well-cultivated ignorance… Various places, Potenza, October–November. Regional Council of Basilicata, with the official presentation of the project at the forum organised by the regional Equal Opportunities Commission.
62. Ri Vel Azione, performance in body art. Thanks to the symbolic action in Participatory Art, the revolutionary force of art becomes especially visible since, by emphasising reality, it sets off processes that help promote personal and social awareness. 4 December, Cultural Centre, piazza Europa, Maratea (PZ).
63. Ri Vel Azione, wearing the Veil in Basilicata – FIDAPA, Potenza

2002

64. Domus de Janas – concept and graphic design of the work
65. Opera Prima: installation – video – preparatory action for Textura and talk, Potenza, January 2003, IRRAE. Involving the pupils in the participatory art project. Weaving new relationships, including the national collective making of participatory art objects, their use for an exhibition, a symbolic action, one or more performances and/or installations starting from Basilicata, in connection with the related research and with the revaluation of values linked to the Feminine and to the care of life. Let us weave together hopes, dreams, wishes… Let us weave together a handmade world… Let us weave together a world of new relationships… Let us weave together a world of new harmonies… Let us weave together a world of peace (see textile art, participatory art)
66. Presentation of the expanded project The Web and more to the Province of Potenza, and its informal acceptance

---

67. Mudra: IN-itiation, Potenza, 2 February 2002. In line with the previous Symbolic Actions – in particular The Invisible Real – The Web – the Artist declares, both directly and subliminally, that each of us belongs to the whole: the connection of microcosm and macrocosm, the union of the living with other beings, human and non-human, with the earth, with the entire universe. The declaration is expressed through Mudras: a dance of the fingers that moves the energy that sustains us… (performances)
68. Ri Vel Azione, photographic exhibition, performance-symbolic action in Body Art, Municipality of Milan, Chiesa degli Angioli, 8 March. Discovering the enormous richness of the Veil, one of the most living archetypal symbols, which – as often happens – has been usurped on one side and manipulated on the other by the culture dominant at the time, to the point of overturning its original meaning and erasing or hiding its many-sided richness…
69. Mandala of peace – meditation and writing with: WaRe SoKu KaMi NaRi, I am a being of Light – I am one with the universe, infinite Light, infinite harmony… – JinRui SoKu KaMi NaRi, Humanity is a being of Light – All that I say, do or think is only for Humanity, only for the happiness of Humanity, only for the peace of Humanity…
70. Madonnas and Witches in Castelmezzano – performance with Dolma Bornengo during the talk of the same name, Centro Donna, via Galboli, April 2002. …The Witches of this research are far from the image the word still evokes, because of the degradation wrought by patriarchal culture on those who since the most ancient times were priestesses, shamans, initiators, and later counsellors, healers, midwives, gatherers and herbalists… Teri dedicates the research to Teresa Vertino, curandera of Castelmezzano, telling the story of her hard life, made tragic by the prejudice and ignorance of those who marginalise anyone who seems different, failing to recognise their worth: an exemplary story among countless others of the hiding of a powerful feminine connected with nature. (Madonnas and Witches in Castelmezzano)
71. Ri Vel Azione – installation with photographs and a red veil panel, Provincial Museum of Potenza, 25–30 March. The artist’s own body as an instrument of communication, interaction, dialogue, research and deeper study on a burning issue: the Veil, whose presence is highlighted not only in Islamic fundamentalism but also in our own culture, as the reactions to the symbolic action itself also show.
72. Disappearance and cancellation of the expanded project The Web and more, presented to the Province of Potenza and informally accepted by its president
73. Textura – textile art and participatory art: double installation at the Provincial Museum of Potenza, 14–30 May: The Door of Life, a large panel with red patches and safety pins; Textum, a book made with the 40 patches woven by hand so far. Let us weave together hopes, dreams, wishes… a handmade world… a world of new relationships… a world of new harmonies… a world of peace (participatory art)
74. Five small textile sculptures – beginning of work on 5 small textile sculptures on natural supports: red woollen thread, silver thread, leaves, branches of wild plum, paper, stone, metal, small golden bells, stones
75. Publications in the journal Donne e Ragazzi Casalinghi
76. The Sorrowful Notes – installation with barbed wire, wood, paper, musical notes and dew. Music a(r)t life, Galleria Dieci.Due, Gaggiano (MI), 24–26 May (performances)
77. Exhibition of paintings and talk on art – catalogue edited by P. Totaro-Ziella – Department of Culture of the Municipality of Spinoso, Basilicata. Proposal to the Municipality of Spinoso to install a peace pole in Basilicata.

---

78. Convivium, our Home is the world – table of peace and hospitality, installation, Legnano, September 2002 (performances). …Favouring the sense of communion among peoples, the idea of hospitality is developed, flowing into conviviality, with a very long table of more than 30 metres covered with an angelic white tablecloth. Aesthetically drawing on classical Renaissance suggestions, the work was deliberately placed in a space both open and closed, under the colonnade of one of the beautiful porticoes of the city of Legnano… Just as in spring life is reborn from the dark earth in the form of small green flames, to begin a new cycle, so these green sprouts will foster the birth of new feelings in the hearts and minds of Humans…
79. The Path into the Heart – concept and graphic design of the multi-purpose event
80. Ri Vel Azione, art as a revolutionary experience – performance, installation, photographic exhibition with giant prints, research and talk with slide projection, Biblioteca Cassina Anna, Milan, 23 November – 13 December 2002, under the patronage of the Municipality of Milan. …the desire to know through unveiling: to understand reality better by removing the veils that cover it, the veils that often cloud our minds… But if we read re-velation as “the action of putting the Veil back on”, we could interpret the performance as a search for other meanings, different from the known ones, in order to overcome prejudice and limitations… The reward for this new and more creative attitude on our part will be the discovery of the enormous richness of the Veil…
81. The Return of the Spider Woman… re-weaving the web of the cosmic order – photographic exhibition on red ribbon-film, installations with the textile sculptures, video projection, December 2002 – January 2003, Galleria Casa di Tolleranza – where tolerance of ideas is discussed! Teri Volini has widened her web, starting from nature and weaving, as she writes, “a ritual in search of harmony”… It is the way of communicating of the shamanic relationship, which always performs its liturgical action with its own techniques, never catalogued, springing from a mysterious exchange with the very elements that make up the planet we move on, made since forever of water and fire, air and earth. (from Stanislao Nievo’s presentation)
82. Land Art, the Union of Art with Nature – the pleasure of making a work of art in synergy with Nature, to symbolise the search for harmony and balance with Mother Earth that human beings seem to have forgotten – talk with slide projection, photographic exhibition on red ribbon-film, 26 November – 30 January 2003, Legambiente Milano, via Padova, Milan. Perhaps the great fascination of Land Art comes from the fact that it enters the flow of energy of Mother Earth, highlighting its power… Drawing on it, on a large scale – on mountains, meadows, deserts, lakes, rivers, sky… – arouses renewed interest in nature and spreads awareness of the neglected values of our habitat. This result, however, is achieved only if the Land Art artist, as counterculture, as alternative culture, stands for a life based on values of constructiveness and peace, interested in social connection and harmony…

2003

83. Publication in Art Diary of the work Ri Vel Azione
84. Opera Prima – talk on art with installation, video-action, Potenza, IRRAE, January 2003. The conformist artist, adhering to the dominant culture, acts unscrupulously, simply according to a project in which only personal, pseudo-intellectual, purely economic interest counts, the acquisition of fame and similar dis-values. In this case art, instead of countering culture, conforms to it, and only confirms the alleged superiority of man over nature, whereby one claims the right to dominate, use and ab-use it at will, with the tragic results we know.
85. The Dance of the Rope – photographic exhibition, installation, video projection, Milan, 2–16 February 2003, Chico Bar del Commercio Equo e Solidale, Milan. 2 February: opening of “The Rhythm of Fire” and video screening; 16 February: opening of “The Invisible Real – The Web” and video screening. “a ritual in search of harmony” that goes beyond the boundaries it started from and takes up their blurred design, as if it were the soul of a very ancient reality… (from Stanislao Nievo’s presentation)

---

86. Taking part in the world-wide writing of the great Mandala of the element Water, with Caterina Vito, Imma… Potenza, February 2003
87. Study of Masaru Emoto’s work on the intelligence of water and the formation of crystals – preparation of a talk with slide projection

---

88. The Red Ribbon of Life – action for peace in participatory art, Potenza, 29 March 2003. Teri Volini and the Delta Centre for Art and Culture, in collaboration with the Department of Culture and Peace of the Municipality of Potenza and with all the organisations of the Peace Table, took part in the demonstration of 29 March 2003, proposing and highlighting the urgency of attention to the values connected with Life through a RED RIBBON 180 m long and 2 m wide, already unfurled on Etna in 1999 to symbolise the Awakening of dormant Vital Energy and the need for transformation within the continuity of life. The RED RIBBON is a powerful archetypal symbol that makes words superfluous, above all in the face of events of extreme gravity such as those we are living through… It is at once perceived as a Symbol of Life, first of all for its colour, red, which powerfully recalls the blood flowing in the bodies of living beings, and so reminds us of the value of, and respect for, every existence – which war obviously opposes. The RED RIBBON delivered its message flowing through the city streets, carried by hand by hundreds of people, like an unstoppable river asking for, expressing and demanding attention to the values it carries – which at this moment demand an end to the conflict and the solution of the problems linked to it by other means, mindful of the need for justice, security and freedom for all peoples. (performances)
89. The Iron Heart – installation for Attraversamenti I, Milan, Quinto Cortile and Bazart galleries, 3–13 April 2003. Installation with photographs, red silk satin ribbon, nails, rust. The unpublished work consists of three 50 x 70 colour photographs in progressive enlargement: Only the Expansion of the Heart leads to Liberation. The Heart that has been put in irons, the Pierced Heart, the Sorrowful Heart, passing through dull suffering, overcomes it and casts off the instruments of pain… The expelled nails fall onto the Red Ribbon – the force of Life that never stops – and are reabsorbed by the Eternal Flow… (performances)

---

90. Empty as bamboo canes – Milan, 8 March 2003, Uptala Pecci Openhouse association: symbolic action and presentation of the video The Awakening of the Goddess, inspired by the latest series of paintings, dedicated to Nature, its sacredness and beauty, with music by Tangerine Dream and a text freely adapted from Robert Graves, voice by G. Valente; Mahamudra meditation; medit-action with Mudras. With Mudras the hands are moved and positioned, drawing mysterious, precious symbols in the air: a special language to activate an equally special communication. The Dance of the fingers that moves the energy of the universe… The hands constantly change, harmoniously alternating their position in the air: the movement activates a powerful though invisible flow of energy that resonates with the highest cosmic energies…

---

91. Our Home is the world, a table of peace – installation in piazza M. Pagano, Potenza, 23 May 2003; contribution to the Peace Table. A very long table of more than 30 metres, covered with an angelic white tablecloth… On this endless table, 60 bowls, also white, were arranged in two interminable rows… In each of the 60 bowls a green sprout is growing. Very powerful vibrations of luminous energy radiate from this Work, involving both its builders and its visitors in an invisible, direct communication in which powerful messages flow without the need for words. This Vibration speaks of Universal Love, of Life, of Union, and so of Peace in the broadest sense of the word: Peace in personal life, Peace in society and Peace in our relationship with the Earth – a stimulus for concrete changes in our way of life. One of Art’s greatest utopias is thus realised: an Art that announces and fosters change and helps express the deep though unconscious needs of human beings, bringing new awareness. I like to visualise around this Table all the Nations of the world, united in the powerful vibration of universal Peace that overcomes divisions, barriers and borders and recognises all human beings as a Unity of perfect harmony. (performances)

---

92. The Path into the Heart – a complex event comprising an installation in seven or nine rooms, a photographic exhibition, a series of special sculptures – including The Shape of the Heart, discussed below – small and large installations, writings, paintings and performances, participatory art actions and so on… It too is part of the real and metaphorical path “The Dance of the Rope”. The stage of the path relating to the “heart” symbol includes different places and ways of realisation. The events, beginning in April, will develop over time. Even when we find ourselves immersed in a whirlwind, we can find the strength to go beyond our personal emotions and feel involved in a collective dimension. Once known and experienced, suffering can not only help us overcome our own pain, but make us more sensitive to that of others… Since the Artist has the privilege, the responsibility, if not the duty, of making visible the movements of the soul, sensations and feelings, having the courage to involve her own life, even dramatically, and to tell her story, in this context she communicates effectively, transforming – transfiguring – sublimating personal experience into an embrace that includes all beings. In this way individual pain, expressed visually in all its facets through the works created, is transformed into an act of universal love. The artist achieves all this with a plurality of works that trace the meaning of the path, the experience lived, the emotions felt and the possibilities of salvation that she communicates in a wide range of ways – at times dramatically, at times ironically, at times joyfully… until reaching a luminous, liberating expression.

93. Heart of Stone – installation – reflection – experimentation… Potenza: sculpture donated to the park of Villa Stemasis, Lago Pantano di Pignola. Local stones, gold paint, July 2003. The tragedy of human beings’ failure to listen, and of their ever more marked insensitivity, is expressed and made visible by this petrified Heart: that of the alienated human being who has lost deep contact with himself and with nature; a human being who perceives Nature as other than himself, feeling superior to it and claiming the right to use it as he pleases, with the results we know. While communicating all this, the Artist becomes aware that there must be no further lingering on considerations that stress negativity: she feels deeply that the time is ripe for an alchemical act, corresponding to a deep inner transformation that turns everything that seemed despair and negativity into positive will, hope, pure light. This rebirth is expressed by placing Gold at the centre of the heart: a crack which, opening, reveals a sudden flash, a real path, a serpent of Light, pointing to the search for and finding of the precious thing within each of us – the divine part that already exists in our heart and that we can rediscover. (performances)

94. The Heart Can Still Blossom – grass sculpture, symbolic action. A large heart of green grass – hope – and flowering clover, shaped in the lawn of the Villa Stemasis park, Pantano di Pignola, Potenza, by the patient mower of Rocco Lapenta. A work of art must combine aesthetic value with communicative value; it carries messages coming directly from Mother Earth. Considering the earth a living body that nourishes and hosts us, I wish to make works in which the suggestions, the inspiration and the materials come directly from her. (performances)

95. The Opening of the Heart – alchemical transformation, or from the Heart of stone to Gold. A large installation – performance – symbolic action: boulders of local stone, white marble slabs and gold paint, about 60 square metres, at the invitation of the Livigno tourist board (SO), fourth edition of Pietrarte, Campaciol, 12–19 August 2003. In collaboration with the Delta Centre for Art and Culture of Potenza, Uptala Pecci Openhouse, Meditation in Art and H. Gritsch. A Land Art work, it draws its fascination from entering the flow of energy of Mother Earth, highlighting its power and beauty, arousing renewed interest and spreading awareness of the neglected values of our habitat… Art, by awakening awareness in each of us, makes us feel part of a whole on which we depend and in which we must act to bring about change. In this work I draw on one of the most powerful archetypal symbols, the Heart, perhaps the oldest and most universal. It is one of those ancestral media that have the power to evoke and convey – without the need for words – the ideas, emotions and sensations belonging to what Jung calls the collective unconscious, which belong both to the individual and to all humanity, and can therefore carry strong messages in an immediate and engaging way… Since the symbol is so universal, there is a risk of abusing and so trivialising it; but this risk is avoided thanks to the power of the Action and the way the Work is made: the large scale, the emphasis on the medium, the use of the symbol in its opposite meaning and, above all, the final act of transformation, culminating in the opening of the heart. (performances)

96. Publication in the Pietrarte 2003 catalogue

97. The Sound in the State of Grace – performance with the mudra Jin Rui Soku Kami Nari, an action in the deconsecrated church of Bolognano, Lucrezia De Domizio’s place dedicated to Joseph Beuys (performances). Like a prayer, Sound can open the doors of knowledge. According to the Tibetan Lamas, this can be achieved through the ringing of a bell, which becomes a vehicle… For Native Americans and African animists, drums are the esoteric channel: when the person playing them has shamanic gifts, their sound can give access to the vision of the cycle of existences. Through sound one can connect with the spirits of the air and ask for their support… Music understood in this way is sacred, closely linked to spiritual search and practice. Tibetan mantras and Balinese dances also take on the same value, since they aim to reach the state of grace.

98. The Rhythm of Fire – video installation, Bolognano, August 2003, at the invitation of Lucrezia De Domizio

99. Publication of “The Web” in the journal of history and history of migration Mondo Basilicata

100. Celebration – installation with three photographs in decreasing size and white fabric 25 x 150 m; performance with the mudras Jin Rui SoKu KaMi NaRi, Humanity is a being of Light, and Ware Soku Kami Nari, I am a being of Light; symbolic action for Attraversamenti II, curated by Mimma Pasqua, Biblioteca Dergano Bovisa, November 2003 (performances). The voice of the universe – The Sound that accompanies the gestures is the supreme gift, leading back to the music of the universe. Through it we can perceive the multitude as one, and the one becoming the multitude… Gesture and voice are the key to establishing the connection. So we can hear in unison the voice of the universe: it is ecstasy, a heart beating in an eternity without time, without beginning or end. Just above, on a plane of greater awareness, one hears the celestial notes of the angelic choirs…

2004

101. Traces: concept, graphic and photographic design of the work, with Tonio Califano (performances)
102. Publication in Art Diary of the work Celebration
103. Installation with Red Ribbon for Opera Prima – two talks with video projections, January 2004, IRRAE, Potenza
104. The Feathered Heart – de-structuring the thorny heart and the nailed heart: freeing them from nails and thorns, entrusting them to the water for purification, a merciful cleansing, the activation of forgiveness, and transformation into a Feathered Heart, light and vain… A heart in plastic, feathers of dove, white swan, guinea fowl, peacock and lapwing… Potenza, River Basento, March 2004 (performances)

---

105. eXtra – exhibition – performance – symbolic action, Milan, April 2004 – an intercultural event for the rights of those we rather inelegantly call extracomunitari (non-EU migrants): open-air exhibition at the Municipality of Milan, via Padova office; symbolic action: a walk from via Padova to via Settembrini, with M. Grazia Longhi and various civil rights organisations (performances)
106. eXtra, a misunderstood symbolic action, Milan, April 2004, at Naga, with Helene Gritsch
107. Ri Velazione, art as a revolutionary experience – performance, installation, photographic exhibition with giant prints, talk with slide projection, Cappella dei Celestini, piazza Duomo, Potenza, under the patronage of the Department of Culture of the Municipality of Potenza. …and again Re-veiling oneself to express solidarity with women oppressed by fundamentalisms of every kind – denied women, forced to wear the veil, forced into silence, forced into invisibility in Islamic fundamentalism – but above all to highlight the scandalous persistence of a Veil, invisible but present in our own culture too: the veil of conformism, the veil of unawareness, the veil of silence imposed on those who do not conform to the dominant culture. (performances; see also research and talks)
108. Ri Velazione, art as a revolutionary experience – further confirmation of the topicality of the veil of silence imposed on those who do not conform to the dominant culture. Photographic exhibition, video projection, Torre Guevara, Potenza.
     108a. Great prayer for Peace and flag ceremony – a peace action in worldwide connection, with Caterina, Arantxa, Vito, Potenza, 7 July 2004
109. Walking meditation – Rifreddo wood, Potenza, 8 July 2004: 10 kilometres of walking meditation from the oil wells in the wood to the Madonna del Saraceno (performances)
110. Declaration of Identity: all the nations of the world – at the invitation of the Associazione MultiKulturale Radici Mediterranee, Interethnic Festival – Music and culture among peoples, Fondi (Latina), July: installation, symbolic action and photographic exhibition. The Work consists of installing 200 identity cards of the artist herself, identical except in one point… in a large outdoor or indoor space. The cards are made, for emphasis, 50 x 70 cm each, along a path of about 200 metres; they can also be arranged in other ways, for example in separate blocks for each continent. It is a project of union, the premise for a different, freer and more constructive approach to the world and to relations between the peoples who inhabit it, in which the common denominator is at last peace-making in justice. The DECLARATION OF IDENTITY not only corrects and wards off any temptation of that castrating, separating nationalism which still does so much damage, but also drives us to understand and accept the concept of ONENESS, the sense of UNION among all beings, whose realisation can no longer wait. A video, an integral part of the Work, is in preparation. (Declaration of Identity)
111. Declaration of Identity, all the nations of the world – Supino (FR), August 2004. Identifying with the different nationalities, the Artist embraces them all, declaring herself – and symbolically becoming – in turn: Albanian, Afghan, Algerian, Arab, Burundian, Cambodian, Chinese, Italian, Turkish, Nicaraguan, French, Lebanese, Malaysian, Nigerian, Portuguese, American, Tunisian…. and also Kurdish, Palestinian, Basque, Irish, Tibetan, Native American. A powerful message of peace and union between peoples: having entered an identity crisis voluntarily and consciously, I emerge from it happily, in a perfect fusion with all nationalities – official and unofficial – determinedly yet with great respect acquiring the status of honorary citizen of the world…
112. A’ Chiena – entrusting messages of union to the water: a symbolic action during the traditional flood of water through the streets of the town of Campagna, in Campania.
113. The Path of Light, from involuntary art to hierophany – installation – symbolic action, photographic exhibition… Milan, Urban Art – RiGiraLArte, organised by Sitart, Sunday 10 October 2004. Experiencing this path of light can be the first step towards activating a new path, in which a significant flow of awareness is set in motion, accompanied by determination in pursuing rediscovered values: peace, harmony, beauty and fullness of life… From via M. Gioia, corner of via Galvani, to the Martesana gardens. Work: the Signs traced on the AEM manhole covers along the cycle path. Authors: the AEM workers and the artist Teri Volini. Performance: a mytho-archaeological cycle-exploration of the AEM manhole covers and the finding of the Symbols “in Joy”. The artist’s intervention: underlining and drips in red and gold on the Signs beyond the manhole covers, on the road surface. Photographic exhibition, installation, dossier on the Symbols: in the Martesana gardens, at the end of via Gioia. Mytho-archaeological research: from the mysterious glyphs of the Ager Cuneatus in the Acropolis of Croccia, Gallipoli Cognato forest – Park of the Lucanian Little Dolomites – to the AEM manhole covers in Milan. (performances)
114. The Path of Light, from involuntary art to hierophany – photographic exhibition, talk, publication of the research, Legambiente, 5 November. A deeper look at the path of rediscovery of certain ancestral symbols… on the manhole covers of AEM, the Milan Electricity Company, in via M. Gioia. These signs are similar to the mysterious glyphs already traced in Basilicata, ancient Lucania, on the great stones of the Ager Cuneatus of the Acropolis of Croccia, Gallipoli Cognato forest, Park of the Lucanian Little Dolomites. …If it is true that the artist sees what often escapes the common gaze, it falls to the artist to carry out this magnificent and demanding task: to discover hidden things, those that peep out, those that seem obvious; buried things that want to re-emerge, reappear, be heard again… and to bring them back to light, explore them, translate them into an understandable language…
115. Golden Mandala, a journey through worlds – symbolic action and writing of the mandala, testimonies of life, via Padova, Milan, 1–13 November 2004. Created in Milan from 1 to 13 November 2004, the Golden Mandala was marked in its circles by about a hundred men and women from different countries of Arab culture: Tunisia, Egypt, Morocco, Algeria, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine… Starting this work of practising peace, Teri first turned to her neighbours, then to the other “foreign” residents of the tenement building with balconies where she lives; she then repeated the request all along via Padova and in the most varied places – supermarket, tobacconist, internet point, café, launderette, halal butcher, pastry shop… – up to the mosque. … I asked everyone to write in the circles, to sow peace in the furrows of the mandala… Everyone signed up to peace… (performances)
116. Golden Mandala – exhibition-installation of peace mandalas from all over the world, Monte Verità Museum; poem. Monte Verità, Ascona, Switzerland, 14 November 2004. The Mandala already has a strong energy in itself; in this case it enjoys a surplus of communicative power, activated by the longing for peace of those who wrote in it… The energy of this aching desire – which is also awareness and vital instinct – is so strong that it passes directly into those who will later stand before the Work… through their eyes, into their hearts and minds… The result is a circular field of radiance, sparkling with arabesques, in which the language itself, thanks to its very particular structure, suggests a vibrant movement in which the signs acquire their own aesthetic and communicative autonomy…
117. Prayer in the mosque – a spiritual action, an action of union, an action of revolution: I wear the veil, but go in to pray in the hall reserved for men at prayer. Via Padova 140, November 2004. Text of the prayer in Arabic, with Italian translation.
118. Ceremony of the Flags of the world – a participatory symbolic action at Orange, via Decembrio, during Amalia Cangiano’s exhibition, Milan, December 2004; text of the prayer.

2005

119. Oneness, we are one with the universe – painting, installation, bilingual Arabic–Italian performance in collaboration with the Arab artist Imed Ben Farhat, 27 January 2005, Castello Cabaglio, Varese, at the meeting “Spirituality and the couple”

120. Publication in Art Diary of the work Dynamic Stellar Scheme, Milan, p. 200

121. Preparation of the video, an integral part of the work Declaration of Identity

122. Madonnas and Witches in Castelmezzano – the complexity and power of the feminine and its deep bond with nature – talk with slide projection in the series “Vivere con cura” (Living with care), Wednesday 20 April 2005, Circolo Sassetti, Milan. The wooden icons of the Madonnas of a small village in Basilicata are the green thread that leads us back to the ancestral deities of Mother Earth, at the time when she was honoured and respected as a living body, and to the Tree itself, an exemplary symbol of this veneration and itself an axis mundi, a powerful archetype of the connection between sky and earth. Madonnas and witches together? Yes, because at a time when we seek real fullness of being and knowledge, we must eliminate the dualism typical of conventional culture which – stressing antitheses such as madonna-witch, virgin-prostitute, saint-temptress, mother-spinster, young-old, beautiful-ugly – leads to fragmentation, preventing us from recognising wholeness, the many-formed richness of all a person’s potential characteristics… In this way we try to overcome the limits of academic knowledge; we break the old model to rediscover keen vision, to perceive once more the immediate presence to consciousness of Nature, of its sacredness and beauty, of the indispensable identity of all living beings with it.

123. Message in the Bottle… – recycled materials can become a many-sided poetic work, a work of art that actively carries important messages, in this case connected with environmental protection… An artistic and educational experience at the invitation of the “Carlo Levi” State Art Institute in Rionero in Vulture, 3–31 May. Project “Operation Ready Made”, under the patronage of ATO1 of the Province of Potenza: talk: Land Art, the pleasure of making a work of art in harmony with Nature; workshop preparing messages, poems and installation; video workshops: The Awakening of the Goddess, The Rhythm of Fire, The Web; photographic exhibition / exhibition of “waste within waste” with Enzo Nesta; making of the video Message in the Bottle; performance and poetry reading; preparation of a dossier; involvement of other schools in the symbolic action – installation at the Piccola di Rionero – open-air symbolic action in participatory art (performances)

124. The Cultural Centre endorses An eco-manifesto – Poised on the brink of eco-catastrophe, / we find the courage to look at the world with new eyes, / to change our habits, to transcend our limits, / to free ourselves from conventional constraints, / from the usual way of conceiving knowledge and truth. / All that we so deeply long for / – the lost sense of wonder, the sense of connection, / the joyful enchantment before the beauty and mystery of life on earth – / all this is what we must regain. / Let us restore to our hearts and minds / the power that belongs to us, / and allow our cultural evolution to resume its interrupted course. / Let us reconnect with our deepest spiritual roots, / so as to use modern technology / not to destroy, exploit and oppress, / but to free those abilities / that belong to us human beings alone: / the ability to love, / to create / and to live once more in partnership, / not domination, / with our miraculous planet, / Mother Earth. – Riane Eisler

125. Founding of the Enterprise of Peace, Potenza, 25 May 2005. Our Centre – also active in Rome and Milan – has constituted itself as an ENTERPRISE. Anyone who wishes to become an entrepreneur of a great Work can take part in it: THE WORK OF PEACE. By joining this Enterprise free of charge, one instantly becomes a Worker of Peace, a builder of the new possible worlds, a sower of RECONCILIATION and BROTHERHOOD. In keeping with this statement of intent, the Delta Centre aims to activate awareness and practice of interreligiosity and interculturality, seen no longer as obstacles – as throughout historical time – but rather as a driving force and an enrichment, personally and socially.

126. Demonstration for Peace in Potenza – As the Delta Centre for Art and Culture we take part in this demanding event because we firmly believe that Art can and must be a project of union, the premise for a new approach – freer and more constructive – to the world and to relations between the peoples who inhabit it, in which the common denominator is at last peace-making in justice. Art can prompt reflections useful for understanding and accepting the concept of ONENESS, that sense of being One with all beings, whose realisation can no longer wait. Presentation of the Enterprise of Peace; installation by Imed Ben Farhat: Happy Contaminations, a flag of union; installation by Teri Volini: Declaration of Identity on Red Ribbon – just one of the 201 identity cards; interreligious circle; installation of the Peace Pole; Flag Ceremony. Potenza, piazza M. Pagano, 25–31 May 2005, organised by Vito Palladino and Marcello Mantegazza (performances)

127. Publication in the event catalogue

128. Golden Mandala, Trotter Park, Milan, 3 June 2005, Urban Art RiGiraLArte. The mandala described above was enlarged into a circle 150 cm in diameter and mounted on a strip of red ribbon about 20 metres long, then installed in Trotter Park among four large trees. …The metaphor of the seed – which contains, in the greatest concentration, all the potential of fertile fruition – was easily perceived as an impulse towards a shared project… …The result is a circular field of radiance, sparkling with arabesques, in which the language itself, thanks to its very particular structure, suggests a vibrant movement in which the signs acquire their own aesthetic and communicative autonomy. The gold colour further underlines the preciousness of the Word – peace – that turns round and round in the circles of the mandala, carrying in its various handwritings the weight of so many worlds – and often the pain – of the many writers, each with their own story and hope… The golden letters dance in a circle, activating the alchemical power of naming peace, which thus becomes invocation, evocation – through the word itself – of the founding value it embodies, an aching desire to embrace it, so that the work of peace may be realised without delay. (performances)

129. Happy Contaminations – a work by the Tunisian Arab artist Imed Ben Farhat in collaboration with Teri Volini, Trotter Park, 3 June 2005, Urban Art RiGiraLArte organised by Sitart. In the same wonderful way in which, through a loving encounter, two human beings who have re-cognised each other in their common universal essence merge, overcoming all separations… so this very special Flag drives us – through the deliberately provocative use of the word contamination – beyond borders and nationalisms. …The white, red and green of the Italian flag and the white and red of the Tunisian one were built by writing the word peace – in Arabic by Imed Ben Farhat, Tunisian artist, and in Italian by Teri Volini – until the familiar structures took shape: the first more schematic, the second more varied, with its crescent moon bearing a star, both red. The two flags overlap and, dancing, merge: there is no erasure of the particular features of each person or people, but the vision becomes broader… (performances)

130. Extraction from the Golden Mandala of samples of “golden writing”, the basis of the work on the seed-word

131. Working group for world peace: Caterina, Vito, Imed, Antonella… Building the Labyrinth – Walking meditation, Potenza, Pallareta wood, August

132. Action Group for Peace, Castelmezzano – Great prayer for peace among the Lucanian Little Dolomites

133. Publication of the paintings on the website of Legambiente Milano, with which she has long collaborated

134. Publication on the website of ATO1 Potenza (Optimal Territorial Area Authority – unified waste management) of the Ready Made project in Rionero in Vulture, the work Message in the Bottle and the Land Art dossier – www.atounopotenza.it/progetti.asp, project no. 9

135. The Celestial Column – beginning of the participatory writing of the great work which aims to replace – by inscribing words and phrases attuned to the life-giving mode and to human and spiritual values, written by anyone who wishes to take part – the usual columns celebrating the warlike, conquering and overbearing mode with a monument of light…

---

137. Beginning of the work on the Germinal Word – Teri Volini and Imed Ben Farhat, sowing Peace: The germinal word – powerful and effective in communicating all the strength, urgency and beauty of being one – the germinal word draws on the joint work of Teri Volini and Imed Ben Farhat, artists of the Delta Centre for Art and Culture, constituted as an enterprise of Peace and working with art in society. They patiently write, on the white support of the canvas, the word that can no longer wait to be named (declined – sustained – affirmed – shouted…). They do so in the two languages representing the two cultures, Italian and Arab, using a fine green tip. The word, repeated with painstaking work hundreds of times, slowly fills the field, performing the desired sowing, so that the alchemy can take place: that new feelings, thoughts and actions may sprout and grow in new, more evolved human beings. The word – the larger one – is the envelope of the myriad of tinier signs with the same meaning that fill it… or else – and this for us is the preferred meaning – it is the fertile microcosm of tiny words that, with loving persistence, forms the container itself: the great seed-word… …Green universally represents blossoming, the growth of vegetation, and also, symbolically, freshness, vital energy, ferment, and metaphorically hope… The seminal force of the work is further highlighted by the deliberate linguistic contamination: the Italian micro-words compose the structure of the Arabic word salam (peace), just as the micro-writings of salam in Arabic build the Italian pace. It is not irrelevant that the work is created by two artists who are also partners in life… and who represent – with their atypical union and their artistic and emotional project – the wish to overcome differences of every kind… The com-union of life thus flows into the work, signifying the will to build new worlds in which interreligiosity and interculturality are the splendid new models to follow. The germinal word becomes the driving force useful for activating a broader understanding and expansion of consciousness. In this way art leaves the usual narrow, purely aesthetic, abstract-conceptual or pseudo-politicised patterns, to express with strong lightness new ways of growth for the aware human being. In this sense it is revolutionary, because it can stimulate fundamental changes in personal and social life. (performances)

Talks with slide projection

Given and/or available (list being updated) – for descriptions see below, or write to terivolini.art@gmail.com; see also research and talks.

• Art as a fundamental experience
• Ancient Cretan society, a culture of peace – How our Foremothers dressed
• The Dance of the Rope
• From paintings to performances and installations: one language
• Weaving in antiquity: the symbolism of the rugs of Old Europe and Anatolia (in preparation)
• Participatory art, textile art: Textura and Imaginifica
• Land Art, the Union of Art with Nature
• Ri Vel Azione, living art in everyday experience
• Madonnas and Witches in Castelmezzano – talk-performance
• The mysterious Glyphs of the Ager Cuneatus in the Gallipoli-Cognato Forest
• The Path of Light, a mytho-archaeological route in Milan
• The intelligence of water – research and talk with slides
• A world that must not disappear
• The lost world of the ex-libris
• The history of mural decoration and trompe-l’oeil

Main research

• Environment: Living with care – ecological laundry – “Cleaning is a little like dying…”
• Crafts: Weaving in antiquity, the symbolism of the rugs of Old Europe and Anatolia
• Archaeology: The mysterious Glyphs of the Ager Cuneatus in the Gallipoli-Cognato Forest
• Archetypal Signs and Symbols of Old Europe – Homage to Marija Gimbutas
• Lucanian culture: The Acropolis of Croccia-Cognato – The May rituals in Basilicata – The Lucanian Black Madonnas – Madonnas and Witches in Castelmezzano – A world that must not disappear – Crafts and symbols in Basilicata
• Unconventional linguistics: Re-semanticisation, starting from words to bring about a change in reality…, or trying to set the upside-down world back on its feet… (see the Journal at the Cultural Centre)

Brief description of some talks

1. ART AS A FUNDAMENTAL EXPERIENCE. An essay on art as a practice of knowledge and awareness. Starting from her own human and artistic story, the author guides us along an interesting and original path, highlighting problems, contradictions and alternatives relating to the art world. Can be combined with: slide projection, film screening, painting and/or photographic exhibition.
2. HOW OUR FOREMOTHERS DRESSED. A talk with slide projection presenting demanding research on the ancient pre-Greek Cretan civilisation, highlighting its spirit of peace and equality between men and women, who took part in life joyfully and as equals… An unconventional historical vision, with the valuable contribution of a text by Armanda Guiducci and the support of the most recent historical and archaeological theories and research, documented by a rich bibliography (Marija Gimbutas, Riane Eisler…). (talk)
3. THE DANCE OF THE ROPE. A series of meetings presenting a particular way of “making art”: a Journey, both real and metaphorical, a research involving the active participation of the public… Titles: a) “The Rhythm of Fire” – talk and video projection (a short film in digital Betacam, about 18 minutes): the story of the first stage of the Journey, carried out in Sicily on Etna, and its meaning; can be combined with an exhibition of paintings, a photographic exhibition, an installation with the Red Ribbon (as already done at the Biblioteca Nazionale in Potenza in March 2000). b) The Invisible Real – The Web – talk and video projection: the story of the second stage of the Journey, carried out on the Lucanian Enchanted Mountain…; can be combined with a photographic exhibition by various authors, an exhibition of paintings, an installation.
4. WEAVING IN ANTIQUITY: the symbolism of the rugs of Old Europe and Anatolia (in preparation) – talk with slide projection, speaker Teri Volini. A search for unconventional symbolic meanings, relating to the valuing of the feminine… The woven symbols, studied and read as the “writing” and “testament” of our pre-patriarchal foremothers, starting from the very ancient civilisations of Hacilar and Çatalhöyük; the symbols analysed as a transcription of their culture, perceived as speaking in primordial images in a mother-centred society, which have come down to us underground. Can be combined with an exhibition of exemplary small rugs and original drawings. (research)
5. PARTICIPATORY ART, TEXTILE ART. An essay on the importance and preciousness of an art that favours the collaboration of all those who wish to foster personal, social and cultural growth. The public will be offered the chance to take part in this practice, with the presentation of the project “Textura”, in Textile Art, in the double sense of “weaving new relationships” and “stimulus to the revival of manual skills”… An exhibition of the objects already made is planned, highlighting their different meanings relating to matrilineality, manual skill, reflection, the search for harmony and beauty.
6. ARCHAEOLOGY: ARCHETYPAL SIGNS AND SYMBOLS OF OLD EUROPE (in preparation). A series of meetings: a) a homage to the great archaeologist Marija Gimbutas and her innovative interpretation of the painted signs of the early Neolithic; b) a research in Lucania: the mysterious glyphs of the Ager Cuneatus in the Gallipoli Cognato forest; c) degradation and usurpation of ancient symbols: the swastika and the double axe. Talks and slide projections; point c) can be combined with an installation. (research)
7. MADONNAS AND WITCHES IN CASTELMEZZANO – speaker Teri Volini. A research starting from the premise of eliminating the dichotomies of the “patriarchal” image of woman… From the study of some “Madonnas” of a small Lucanian village, it goes very far, on an incredible journey through space and time… The part devoted to the “witches” tells of an old healer who recently died and of her incredible life story. Talk and slide projection; can be combined with a photographic exhibition. (publications)
8. RI-VEL-AZIONE – speaker and performer Teri Volini. All-round research on the “veil” and its meanings which, on the one hand, does justice to the many-sided symbolic richness of this very ancient, powerful archetype; on the other, expresses the desire to know reality better through “unveiling” – removing the veils that cloud its perception; and on yet another, through the symbolic action of “putting the veil back on”, seeks to overcome prejudices and limitations. Talk with slide projection: the revolutionary power of art which, by emphasising reality, sets off processes that help promote personal and social awareness. Performance in Body Art; photographic exhibition of the path made wearing the Veil; photographic exhibition with giant prints; installation. (performances)
9. ENVIRONMENT: LIVING WITH CARE. Several meetings: Living with care – “Cleaning is a little like dying” – Ecological laundry
10. THE LOST WORLD OF THE EX-LIBRIS. Talk and slide projection; can be combined with an exhibition of ex-libris by various artists. (ex-libris)
11. TRICKS OF THE EYE. Talk and slide projection: a historical excursus on mural decoration from archaic times to today; can be combined with a photographic exhibition or painted panels. (trompe-l’oeil)
12. Land Art, the Union of Art with Nature
13. The mysterious Glyphs of the Ager Cuneatus in the Gallipoli-Cognato Forest
14. The Path of Light, a mytho-archaeological route in Milan
15. A world that must not disappear (in preparation)
16. Poetic paths
17. The intelligence of water (in preparation)

Exhibitions

Painting exhibitions

• The Enchanted Mountain, Cesare Vivaldi (only in slides and photographs)
• Gardens of Sea and Land, Cinzia Zungolo
• Born under the Sign of Pisces, Gabriella Parca
• The Rhythm of the Spikenard and the Star, Lucio Tufano
• The Colour of Women, Elio Mercuri
• The Awakening of the Goddess, M. Grazia Longhi, P. Totaro-Ziella
• The Dance of the Rope, Stanislao Nievo

See paintings and publications.

Photographic exhibitions: those offered in combination with the talks above (being updated).

Videos

Professionally made in digital Betacam, on VHS or DVD:

• TERI VOLINI IN ARLES-EN-PROVENCE – VHS: an exhibition twinned with the south of France
• THE AWAKENING OF THE GODDESS – VHS and DVD: the tale in images of the poetic path of an artist-”painter”, accompanied by a free interpretation of a text by Robert Graves
• THE RHYTHM OF FIRE – VHS and DVD: the tale in images of the “journey” of the Red Ribbon on Etna, the vision of the volcanic mountain in the fullness of its terrible beauty, related – through a visual metaphor – to the symbolic action carried out by the artist and the 60 participants
• THE INVISIBLE REAL – THE WEB – VHS and DVD: the tale in images of the Journey of the Red Ribbon on the Lucanian Little Dolomites, the building of the Web of red thread between the rocky peaks, its beauty, its destruction by a storm: a metaphor of life and its transience, which nonetheless does not prevent us from “doing well what we do”
• Message in the Bottle – DVD: A message in a bottle is what we send to the world… The red ribbon turns white, to symbolise…

See the videos.

Publications since 1999

• L’Arte come esperienza fondamentale
• Il Ritmo del Fuoco
• Il Reale Invisibile. La Ragnatela I
• Il Reale Invisibile. La Ragnatela II
• Ri Vel Azione
• I misteriosi Glifi dell’Ager Cuneatus nella Foresta di Gallipoli-Cognato
• Il Sentiero della Luce
• Message in the Bottle, dossier

For contacts and information: terivolini.art@gmail.com – Teri Volini, Delta Centre for Art and Culture, Piazzale Sofia 21, 85100 Potenza – via Clitumno 11, 20131 Milan – mobile +39 339 241 4133