Words of Light for Our Life

A collective work in participatory art, with 60 people

Artist’s Manifesto

The collective work Words of Light for Our Life is based on awareness of the great creative power we exercise with our thoughts and words.

Through the work it is possible to communicate to civil society, and especially to young people, the need to change for the better the way we relate to others, starting from the words we use every day.

In such a confused and difficult time – locally and globally – declaring oneself eager for, and a guarantor of, generosity, harmony, peace, strength, courage, goodness, love and so on – when these words are understood in their authentic and deep meaning – can give a powerful boost to the beautiful, luminous and constructive part of us.

Begun long ago as a participatory and progressive action, the Work allowed people to join the project via the internet and Facebook too. So, while support kept arriving from the city, the region, Italy and abroad, the artist herself organised HAPPENINGS, also at public events, to take photographic portraits of all those who wished to bear witness with her to the importance of a new way of relating to others, starting from the use of words, with an intention of truth and authenticity.

The Work, created with the participation of sixty people, highlights how positive, bright words produce an enormous energy that contributes to the improvement of ourselves and of the whole world.

Both the people portrayed directly by the artist and those who joined by sending their photograph online instantly became co-authors of the collective work, creating together with the artist a work in Body Art, Public Art, Urban Art and Participatory Art – Teri Volini’s favourite art forms.

Each participant attuned to the word of light they had chosen, which was then written over their image, and the portraits were laid out graphically and printed on a large panel.

The Work was presented to the public several times, on a purely voluntary basis, starting with the Maggio Potentino festival:

• Saturday 5 June: at the invitation of the 2nd teaching district of Potenza, presentation and exhibition in the auditorium of the L. La Vista middle school, Rione Francioso
• Sunday 6 June: presentation and exhibition during the event “Back to the art of play” on the Hundred Steps in Viale Dante (via Leoncavallo)
• Saturday–Sunday 19–20 June, during the feast of St Cecilia – Poggio Tre Galli
• 19–25 July, in the Borgo Antico Porta Salza, Potenza
• October–November, at the Biblioteca Nazionale, Potenza

Co-protagonists of the collective work:

Words of Light for Our Life, a collective work in participatory art by Teri Volini, with: Teri Volini, Mariarosa Marcantonio, Daniele Caridi, Sonoko Tanaka, Lucia Gallucci, Giuliana Gallo, Carmen Telesca, Rosalba Raimondi, Claudio Gregori, Daniela Bruscia, Nunzia Carpentieri, Giorgia Di Lorenzo, Lucia Bonelli, Luciana Rizzuti, Gianfranco Ceccato, Fabio Piangerelli, Francesco Palazzo, Carmela Fornarini, Rita Zaccagnino, Marcello Mantegazza, Gaia Bonetti, Maria Raimondi, Daniela Santangelo, Cataldo Altavista, Nadia Sanza, Assunta Teana, Claudio Del Cambio, Daniela Valentini, Sofia Senigaliesi, Miria Lorusso, Simona Santarsiero, Vito Palladino, Patrizia Tempone, Marina Costa, Cristiana Lopomo, Giuseppe D’Orazio, Daniela Panzeri, Francesco Pio Vergura, Vincenzo Santoro, Gabriela Jantoniu, Giuseppe Lancellotti, Marisa Rossetto, Stefano Spagnuolo, Marco Del Cambio, Laura Fugazza, Luca Cristiano, Alessandra Giordano, Mimmo Leccese, Angela De Zoti, Miki Del Cambio, Dino Moles, Arianna Galotta, Carmela Pace, Maria Apuleo, Gennaro Console, Carmela Vomero, Mohammed Ramza, Loredana Casaletto, Antonio Cortese, Luisa Esposito.

At the heart of the work

Today more and more people are aware of the incredible creative power we exercise with our thoughts and words. Positive and bright words have a special power. They produce an enormous energy that creates a future full of joy for ourselves and for the whole world. If we truly wish to be happy, let us use at every moment only splendid, inspired, wonderful words…

Masami Saionji, president of the World Peace Foundation, New York, and of the Goi Peace Foundation, Tokyo

Masami Saionji’s enlightened words underlie the search for new, more evolved ways to express and elevate our thoughts and actions, so as to make both useful for the improvement of ourselves and of humanity.

Words of light become the basis of the Participatory Art work that Teri Volini wishes to share with other people of the same synergetic sensitivity.

After years of choosing to make art a privileged means of communicating fundamental messages, in recent years Teri Volini has explored this possibility with several works (see Video & galleries), up to the work created in 2009,

LET US RE-FORM THE PLANET WITH WORDS OF LIGHT,

which grew out of the experience of writing Mandalas – which Teri has practised since 2002 – and, chronologically, out of the writing of the

MANDALA OF THE GREEN EARTH,

in which the continents and oceans of Planet Earth were composed together with hundreds of pupils from two schools in Potenza by writing words of Light: positive, auspicious words, promises to the Earth for new harmonies, so that it may become healthy, clean and flourishing again.

Words of light for our life

With the work “Words of light for our life” the artist asks the inhabitants of the planet – starting with the region where she now lives – to accompany her in this active exploration of the deep meaning those words have for us, in the everyday reality of our lives and in communicating them to the world.

Starting from the conscious and determined declaration of “understanding” and “being” the quality represented by each word, each participant chooses one and identifies with it – for example: I AM INFINITE LIGHT, I AM INFINITE HARMONY, I AM INFINITE FORGIVENESS…

Sometimes one is “chosen” by the word, and in any case one works on it; the adjective infinite represents the drive to go beyond superficial or conventional meanings and rediscover the true, deep sense that can affect our lives.

Since the declarations are made in harmony with others, a sharing group forms, whose magnificent result is the multiplication of the beneficial effect that each single word already possesses.

AN ACT OF COMMUNICATION

At this point the act of communication to the world takes place: the declaration – I AM INFINITE STRENGTH, I AM INFINITE BEAUTY, I AM INFINITE KNOWLEDGE, and so on – is written over each photograph, and the photographs are put together to form a large panel for public display, from which the message emerges joyfully amplified.

After a first presentation, it will be possible to create a touring exhibition of the panel, a virtual exhibition of all the photos and a “real” one, at a place and time to be decided.

Delta Centre for Art and Culture, Potenza