REPORT ON THE “SYUM-BÀLLO” PROJECT
by MELANIA KALZ
Project for the creation of an itinerant work of art, with the involvement of the young people of the social cooperative society “AD FORMANDUM”, the hospitality center “SAN LUIGI” of Gorizia and the public institution “LJUDSKA UNIVERZA AJDOVŠČINA” of Ajdovščina.
“Syum-bàllo” is the etymology of the word “symbol” and means “to put together”, to unite, to create a bond. In ancient Greece the symbol was called “tessera hospitalis”, so that two individuals, two families or two communities broke a card, often a terracotta container, into two fragments and each kept a part of it as a sacred gift. This, reunited or not in a future meeting, even distant in time, would forever testify to the ancient friendship.
Starting from this remote and beautiful tradition, the project, proposed and coordinated by Ambra Marega, conceived and laboriously conducted by Manuel Grosso and followed by the Ad Formandum referent Melania Kalz, has currently completed the elaboration phase at the Maninarte artistic studio in Romans d’Isonzo. Here the students of the three educational realities involved, the San Luigi, Ad Formandum and the Ljudska Univerza Ajdovščina, experiencing a space specifically dedicated to art, proposed and studied graphically, coloristically and compositionally the ideas that then resulted in the final draft. Now, in the second phase, at the Ad Formandum offices, we will start the construction of the work on large wooden panels that make up a circle of three meters in diameter.
According to a beautiful intuition, the three matching and converging parts at the center of the form, representing the memory of the alliance, of the mutual recognition of a humanity that, beyond cultural, political, social, religious, temporal and identity boundaries makes us all brothers and children of this planet, have been divided according to lines that exactly follow the path of the three important rivers that cross the countries of origin of the children: The Brahmaputra for Bangladesh, the Medjerda for Tunisia, the Isonzo for Slovenia and Italy.
Another particular idea chosen by the students, very evocative of the themes of contact, proximity, intimacy and which takes the form of some ancient hospital tiles, was to reiterate the shape of the hand that appears throughout the work in infinite variations, but we do not want to reveal too much.
From a didactic point of view, using the methods of visual thinking and open techniques aimed at making artistic inexperience not an obstacle, but an advantage, the activity has strongly focused on the expressiveness of everyone, trying to pave the way for uniqueness and different cultural backgrounds. Just as each one can be understood in the individual sense of “person“ (“per se unum“) and, at the same time, in the relational meaning of “prosopon” (“the one who stands in front of me”), because we are both unrepeatable individuals and the result of mirroring in the eyes of others, so the work is the manifestation of what has been a continuous process of dialogue, of confrontation between oneself and the other throughout the workshop.
Seeing the children enthusiastic, assertive, curious about their travel companions, intense and profound in their reflections on even complex topics, gave us companions a feeling of joy and the awareness that new and edifying horizons of meaning, if fostered, can create solid bridges between lives fully lived.
The artifact will initially be presented at the Transalpine Square, then it will become a traveling work and, finally, separated and exhibited in the three locations of Ad Formandum, San Luigi and Ljudska Univerza Ajdovščina.