The Germinal Word

Struct-Action – Symbolic Action / Installation

White primed canvas, charcoal, pencils, fine-tipped indelible markers – Milan and various places

The seed-Word Peace, containing the micro-words salam from which it was built
The seed-Word Salam (Arabic for peace), formed with the Italian micro-words pace

Powerful and effective in communicating all the strength, urgency and beauty of peace, The Germinal Word is based on a participatory art project of mine, to be carried out in cooperation not only with other artists but with anyone who wishes to collaborate, provided they share its intent.

Initially, in 2005, it was I.B. Farhat who was involved in the writing.

On the white support of the canvas the word-that-can-no-longer-wait-to-be-named was patiently written.

The word was written in two languages, representing Italian and Arab culture, with a fine green tip.

The seed-Word

The germinal word presents itself as the envelope of a myriad of tinier words with the same meaning, which fill it…

But at the same time it is the fertile microcosm of tiny words that actively gives form – with loving persistence – to the container itself: the great seed-word…

In any case, container and content vie to provide a precise, autonomous, self-supporting structure meaning peace, formed – in Italian and in Arabic – by the tiny but powerful peaceful army of homologous words, of a special nascent strength…

Hope

This special energy is further highlighted by the colour. Green universally represents blossoming, the growth of vegetation, and also, symbolically, freshness, what is vital, ferment, and metaphorically hope…

Contamination

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.

Idealism and overcoming outdated patterns

It is not irrelevant that I wanted a representative of Arab Muslim culture to collaborate on the first Germinal Word; in keeping with my ideals, I wished to share a great task, new to our customs: to create, through art, new visions of life and of the world; to have a person of such a different culture be the spokesperson of new ways for new worlds, a standard-bearer of new possibilities of coexistence between peoples… in com-union.

The first writers of The Germinal Word were thus two human beings who – with their atypical relationship and their ideal, if unusual, project of art and life – could represent the possibility of overcoming the many differences, in view of a high common goal…

The proposal of com-union flowed into the Work, exemplifying the will to build those hoped-for new worlds, in which religious and cultural plurality would be the splendid models to follow, while outdated patterns were being de-structured.

At the root of the project is the idea that Art can help overcome narrow, purely aesthetic, abstract or conceptual paradigms, to express with strong lightness new ways of growth for the aware human being.

Art can be revolutionary if it is able to stimulate fundamental changes in personal and social life…

Rewritten again and again with painstaking work, countless times, the seed-Word slowly filled the field, performing an auspicious sowing, so that the alchemy could take place: the sprouting and growth of new feelings, thoughts and actions in new, more evolved human beings.

A germinal word as a driving force, useful for activating a broader understanding and expansion of consciousness.