The photographic exhibition I am is curated by Luisa Menazzi Moretti, produced by Città della Pace for Children Basilicata, Cooperativa Sociale il Sicomoro and Arci Basilicata in collaboration with the Museum Complex of Basilicata. The project is composed of twenty large photographic portraits of refugees and asylum seekers, to which are added panels with texts of their stories collected by the artist during his recent stay in Basilicata.
“I have met people who have come to our country in search of a better life,” said Luisa Menazzi Moretti. “Along with many others they disembark and mingle in the indistinct influx of faceless men and women without history. We know nothing about them. Where are they from, who are they? We see them from afar. On television, on the internet, they all look the same.
The work, carried out during the first half of 2017, involved the refugees welcomed in the SPRAR projects of Basilicata promoted by the Province of Potenza and the Municipality of Matera and managed by the Città della Pace Foundation, the Sicomoro and Arci Basilicata Social Cooperative; they are people, now living in Basilicata, who come from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria, Nepal, Libya, Gambia, Nigeria, Senegal, Egypt, Congo, Mali, Ivory Coast, Eritrea and Ethiopia.
The project includes, in addition to the exhibition, a video and the book Io sono published by Giunti Editore. The work is also accompanied by a special teaching guide, an in-depth tool to develop educational programs in the original schools on respect for human rights.
In Matera the exhibition, after the inauguration on March 1, which will be attended by the protagonists portraits of the author, will remain open until April 5. It will then be hosted in Potenza at the Provincial Archaeological Museum from 18 to 31 May and then move to Lecce in June at the Museum Complex of the Convent of the Teatines and in Naples, in October, at the PAN-Palazzo delle Arti.
The inauguration will be attended by Luisa Menazzi Moretti, the Director of the Central Service – SPRAR Daniela Di Capua, the Director of the Museum Complex of Basilicata Marta Ragozzino, the Director of the Matera-Basilicata Foundation 2019 Paolo Verri, the Director of the City of Peace Foundation Valerio Giambersio , the President of the “Il Sicomoro” Social Cooperative Michele Plati and the President of ARCI Basilicata Ottorino Arbia.
Visiting hours 9-20 every day, Wednesday 11-20.
Museum ticket € 3.00 full / 1.50 reduced / free terms of the law, the first Sunday of the month and the day of the inauguration