Cuca is a multicultural centre that offers courses, classes and workshops in performing and visual arts. This new ambitious project set out to create something special, a place that listens to people before teaching them something, using contemporary approaches, creating links and connections between teachers, students and the whole community, across many disciplines, providing the highest education.
This year Cuca moved to a huge new location and I was asked to take part, along with my great friend Alesenso, and join them in this special task, painting the largest of the new building facades. This was an incredible experience for me, very challenging and rewarding. Given the particular building structure, with 2 parallel long and thin areas to be painted, it was difficult to conceive something that could have a strong composition and be able to convey sense at the same time. I wanted to tell a story, so I approached the two strips as photographic films, where pictures in frames could run along each strip and speak to people. You can see how my characters and typical elements from my visual language, depicted with a specific sense of rhythm, take life and fly, play music, read and hail you as you walk along the building. I wanted the people who walk near the building to lift up their head, be captured and invited to join a colorful and joyful world, step after step.
Part of the project was a workshop with children I had the opportunity to run. I wanted it to be a meaningful part of my collaboration with Cuca. I wanted the children to feel part of in a practical and tangible way. During the workshop I drew one of the characters, that plays a role in the main mural and then let them fill it with their joy of life, letting them continue the white paper strip with what the imagined could come after. Needless to say the experience was absolutely inspiring and fulfilling…the link with what the children painted and my main mural was that I would paint on the wall what they painted on the paper strip, thusly using the result of the work as a sort of sketch. Children were so happy and motivated to know that what they were going to painted would become a giant illustration, inspired by them. In the picture below you can see the result.
I want to thank all those who made this big project possible,
the children and their hands full of paints,
the guys at Cuca, Alessio, Davide, Elena, Lorenzo, and all those who will forgive me for not remembering
My great great mate Ale
Clèr for watching over me from below
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