L'Italo-Americano

SEATTLE ITALIAN COMMUNITY THURSDAY, DECEMBER 1, 2022 www.italoamericano.org 32 L'Italo-Americano M ore than two years in the making, the Migration Project, on display in Perugia, Italy, from Sept. 3- Oct. 9, 2022, wel- comed 10 artists from two countries. The show brought together a mix of exceptional talent and artistic vision and attract- ed visitors from Perugia and abroad. Five US artists partic- ipated — Humaira Abid, Iole Alessandrini, Mary Coss, Paul Goldstein and Malayka Gor- mally – along with five artists from Perugia: Paolo Lattaioli, Sandford & Gosti, Tonina Cec- chetti, Vilma Lok and Kim Hee Jin. As sister cities, Seattle and P e r u g i a h a v e c o o r d i n a t e d many art and cultural displays over the years. Next year, they will recognize 30 years of sis- ter-city friendship with cele- brations on both sides of the Atlantic. In addition to the Seattle-Perugia Sister City Association and its Italian cohort, the Perugia Com- m i t t e e , other sponsoring organizations were the City of Perugia and the Palazzo della Penna Museum which hosted the exhibit. Jury committee members were: Professor Jamie Walk- er, University of Washington; Emidio De Albentiis, director, Perugia's Academy of Fine Arts; Nadine Edelstein, Seat- t l e - b a s e d c e r a m i s t a n d designer; Antonio Carlo Ponti, Perugia writer and art critic; and Davide Vaste, design pro- fessor, Academy of Fine Arts. The selection of migra- tion as the exhibit theme res- onated with both visitors and the artists themselves. Several of the Seattle artists or their families were recent immi- grants themselves. For visi- tors, the topic is familiar and one that is in the news nearly every day - whether it's immi- grants from Central America fleeing across the US-Mexico border or families from Africa adrift in small boats, trying to find refuge in Italy or Greece. "This is a hot topic," wrote e x h i b i t c u r a t o r A n t o n i o Carlo Ponti in the catalog that accompanied the exhibit. "We know something about it in Italy with hundreds of immigrants disembarking every day, and the rest of Europe ignoring it. If art today has a meaning, a scope beyond just 'impressing the middle classes,' it has to be committed, not as propagan- da, but in a spirit of aware- ness and service, a lay apos- tleship." The exhibit was housed in nine galleries at the Palazzo della Penna, each room rep- r e s e n t i n g a c o n c e p t t h a t evoked the theme and cap- tured a specific artist's vision. One room was called Viag- gio/Journey; others were Mani/ Hands, Guerre/Wars, or Barche/ Boats, to name a few. Seattle artist Mary Coss, a poet as well as visual artist, displayed her work in a space entitled Vele/Sails. She inter- preted the theme through a poem she wrote called The Shape of Passage. Visitors could read the poem as part of the exhibit label or they could interact with it more physically by "reading" the walls where thread formed the individual lines. Trans- parent fabric and clothing covered the gallery, looking like "an emptied closet of memories floating in the air," said Coss. T h e p o e m s h e w r o t e expressed the poignancy of leaving behind one's home. It r e a d i n p a r t : " H o w t o remember/homeland/Seize the scent/Aroma of warmth/ Sunlight filtered through ver- dant stalks/Grasses weaving and waving goodbye." The son of Russian immi- grants, Brooklyn-born sculp- tor Paul Goldstein started his journey not as an artist but as a teacher for emotion- ally disturbed children. Seek- ing balance in his life, he got into photography and then moved on to sculpture. His w o r k i n P e r u g i a w a s d i s - p l a y e d i n a r o o m c a l l e d Corpi/Bodies — appropriate since it included a figure of a m a n w i t h a b o w e d h e a d (Man is Born to Cry) along with several sculptures of Native American women. Raised in Berkeley, Calif., Malayka Gormally inter- preted migration through ink-and-watercolor portraits of immigrants from different times and places, both real and imagined. Some of her portraits showed women and children from Ethiopia or West Africa; others were her interpretation of immigrant families from a century ago, arriving at Ellis Island. Similar to the others, Gor- mally also has a personal con- nection to the theme. Her father had emigrated to the US in the 1940s from Hol- land; her mother's parents came from Poland fleeing anti-Jewish pogroms. "I'm interested in exploring con- nection and conflict between people of disparate races, g e n e r a t i o n s a n d p o l i t i c a l beliefs," said Gormally. "I'm also interested in the immi- grant experience." Through her work, Seattle artist Humaira Abid, born in Pakistan, explores relation- ships and their after-effects. One of the most evocative pieces in the Migration exhib- it was her installation called The World is Beautiful, and Dangerous, Too. It consisted of a child's swing carved in wood, its seat decorated with a colorful pastoral theme. Nearby, empty red sandals were affixed to the ground as if the child who wore them was swooped up unexpected- ly. The juxtaposition of play and danger, normalcy and mystery, is provocative. Abid also carved five rear- v i e w c a r m i r r o r s f r o m pinewood, called Fragments of Home Left Behind. Look- ing into each mirror's "reflec- tion" viewers can see what was left behind or, in some cases, what the person was fleeing – fires, upheaval, war. Artist Iole Alessandrini was born in Abruzzo, Italy, but has lived in Seattle for nearly 30 years. Known for c a p t u r i n g t h e i n t e r p l a y between light and space, her installation in Perugia took visitors into a new dimension – an entire room filled with laser art. Her work forced viewers to use all their senses, not just what is visible, and challenged them to go beyond borders and break down bar- riers. The idea for the Migration exhibit first surfaced in 2019. Although the pandemic set back plans for more than a year, the project regained s p e e d i n l a t e 2 0 2 1 . W h e n finally staged this fall, the installation successfully real- ized its goal to open an inter- national conversation focused on respect, tolerance and peaceful co-existence. Visitors tour an installation by Mary Coss that uses transparent fabric and thread to form lines of a poem (Seattle-Perugia Sister City Association) Seattle and Perugia artists open a conversation on tolerance and respect RITA CIPALLA Four of the Migration Project artists at the exhibit opening in Perugia (left to right): Tonina Cecchetti, Iole Alessandrini, Humaira Abid and Mary Coss (Seattle-Perugia Sister City Association)

• Cover