Convivium – Potenza

our Home is the world

Photos by Caterina Putignano

Department of Culture and Peace, Municipality of Potenza
Delta Centre for Art and Culture

The Table of Peace and Solidarity
Installation – Performance in Participatory Art

Breathing ever more dangerously the “winds of war” has shown more than ever the need for, and the urgency of, Peace as an indispensable value.

Art, with its special language, can effectively communicate this urgency and above all stress the importance of a culture of Peace that is not limited to emergencies but asserts it, together with solidarity, as an absolute and primary value.

The Event

On 23 May 2003 the Artist Teri Volini presents the Work

CONVIVIUM, OUR HOME IS THE WORLD

Exploring the founding elements of civil coexistence – solidarity and brotherhood – and favouring the sense of communion among peoples, Teri Volini developed the idea of hospitality, which flows into conviviality, creating a very long table of more than 30 metres, covered with an angelic white tablecloth.

Aesthetically drawing on classical Renaissance suggestions, the Work is deliberately placed in a space both open and closed – under the colonnade of one of the city’s porticoes, or directly in its main square: in any case in close contact with people.

In this way a Symbolic Action in Participatory Art takes place, allowing everyone to take an active part in the Work.

On this endless table, 60 bowls, also white, are arranged in two interminable rows.

In each of the 60 bowls a green sprout is growing.

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.

In this work too the Artist favours the number 60. This number, a constant in Teri Volini’s work, highlights the connection among human beings and between microcosm and macrocosm: 60 is the number of regular beats of our heart per minute; it is the measure of time we also carry on our wrists in our watches, and it corresponds astonishingly to the pulse of the Universe.

The colours

The rigorous choice of white, enhanced by the preciousness of the fabric, is not by chance: white – beyond its powerful archetypal meanings of luminosity, candour and purity – allows the small green sprout, a symbol of love, hope, rebirth and growth, to stand out.

In white and green all the energy of life takes shape, all the positive will to develop values that contribute to the culture of Peace.

Beauty and large scale

The message the artist wishes to communicate is conveyed on the one hand by the beauty and evocative power of the Work, and on the other by its large scale, which, through wonder, focuses attention and prompts a search for the meanings the Work carries.

Teri Volini – Delta Centre for Art and Culture, Via Adriatico 20 – 85100 Potenza