MURAP FESTIVAL
30 JULY – 8 aUgUst 2021 PESCARA
Watch the video of the event
MURAP Festival
Walls for Public Art in Pescara
This project sees Pescara betting on contemporary urban muralism as a complementary tool to the actions of architectural and urban requalification in place. Fondazione Aria is the promoter of the project, with the artistic direction of Alessandro Sonsini, as well as an implementing body, together with the Municipality of Pescara.
The 2021 edition of the festival makes its debut with 550 square meters of murals, 4 international renowned artists, 3 urban sites, 2 neighborhood communities involved in the creative process of wall painting and 1 panel discussion featuring experts in the field to take stock of the transition from the 1900s Street Art to the new mode of expression and management that has been developing during the third millennium.
The initiative stems from the opportunities offered by the “Municipal regulation about the promotion of Street Art and Writing” approved in 2019; it becomes part of the social fabric of the city and tends to strengthen its identity, proposing an updated model of Street Art.
Artists
The 2021 edition sees the participation of the following artists:
Ericailcane and Bastardilla
a well-established duo that, for about eight years, has been participating to the most important events of the muralism international scene. With a language characterized by humanized animals, they reach indisputable levels of visual poetry made of bright colors and social commitment. Through zoomorphism they launch universal messages, sometimes rough, critical and contemptuous, other times soothing, lyrical and cheerful.
Antonello Macs
is among the most renowned international characters. His character portraying skill reveals the ability to duplicate body and facial features never aimed at realistic representation, but rather at a more symbolic meaning. Through the distortion of natural features, the artist can depict humanity under the weight of its little flaws with an ironic, burlesque and mocking vein, but he also knows how to convey the values of humankind.
Alessandra Carloni
an artist in her own world, where dreamy characters live in fairytale atmospheres. She doesn’t really offer alternative realities; she rather points out on that positive dream part which exists inside every one of us. And from that, the portrayal of suspended boats, tree houses, lighthouses on the top of the mountains, inhabited by people that, caught in the act of dreaming, often don’t have eyes, because eyes are not necessary to a dreamlike journey.
Two female and two male artists, to guarantee the muralism world equal opportunities, of course. Four pretty different styles, but they all share the expression through a figurative language that is never banally realistic. All of them use rhetorical figures and metaphors. The resulting painting is full of meaning, but it never gives up esthetical dimension.
INTERVENTION SITES
One central and two suburban sites, north and south of the city respectively, have been selected for the 2021 edition.
Intervention involving the central site
It involves the 11 motorway pillars between Risorgimento and D’Annunzio bridges.
The present intervention will involve the pillars sides facing the sea, that artists Ericaeilcane and Bastardilla will treat as a whole, as they were a single large support whose figures are decomposed and recomposed depending on the observer’s point of view and movement, trying to take advantage of the peculiar perspective effect that pillars offer. The plot recalls the 19th century stories of the Bourbon jail building (Bagno borbonico), “obscured” by the construction of the motorway in the second half of 1970’s. Though being a proven relief to city traffic, this infrastructure has objectively enormously harmed the historic artifact, both from the point of view of the environment, because of the alteration of the nature of the floodplain, and from a historical point of view, as it actually obstructed the sight of the Bourbon jail from the riverside.
Affirming that the wall painting intervention can compensate the damage suffered by the jail building, could appear a little excessive; but the desire to enhance urban décor through a pictorial intervention on pillars, inspired by the former penitentiary, is an achievable and appropriate goal.
Intervention involving north suburbs – Zanni neighborhood
It involves the Britti Multipurpose Center front wall facing the sea, located along Cesano street and in a central position with respect to the conformation of the neighborhood. Antonello Macs intervention on the Center’s wall will follow the directions emerged from the listening activity carried out among the district’s inhabitants.
A participatory planning method, successfully tried in Italy from the 1970’s, which is necessary and appropriate to share the realization of the wall painting with the natural receivers of the artwork, hoping that their affection and sense of belonging to the territory will be increased by their involvement.
Intervention involving south suburbs – San Donato neighborhood
It deals with the head wall facing the mountain of an Ater (public housing institution) building, along Tripodi street. Alessandra Carloni’s intervention too will take place according to the suggestions emerged from the listening activity among the district’s inhabitants. In addition to the participatory planning, the Municipality of Pescara will start an action of requalification/enlargement of a public garden situated in front of the mentioned wall. An opportunity to reaffirm the effectiveness of contemporary urban muralism as a complementary tool to the actions of architectural and urban planning regeneration.
Events
Three side events are planned during the construction of the murals:
Panel discussion
August 3 – 2021 – 06,00 p.m.
Auditorium Petruzzi – Via delle Caserme, 24 – Pescara
Booking: info@fondazionearia.it
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Title:
FROM THE 20TH CENTURY STREET ART
TO THE CONTEMPORARY URBAN MURALSIM
Welcome:
Carlo Masci, Mayor of Pescara
Ottorino La Rocca, President of Fondazione Aria.
Adelchi Sulpizio, Councilor for Social Policies Municipality of Comune di Pescara.
Introduction:
Alessandro Sonsini
Art director MURAP Festival.
Speakers:
Fabiola Naldi
Art historian, critic and curator, professor at L’Aquila Academy of Fine Arts and University of Bologna.
Simone Pallotta
Public and urban art curator and founder of WALLS association for contemporary art in urban fabric.
Rosaria Mencarelli
Art historian and Superintendent Archeology Fine Arts and Landscape for the provinces of Pescara and Chieti.
Curzio Cicala
Lawyer, intellectual property law expert in the framework of contemporary urban wall painting.
The round table’s purpose is to take stock of the state-of-art of this particular form of artistic expression, as a consequence of its “impetuous irruption” in the third millennium that shows an unforeseen vitality as well as the need to reconsider its terms and purposes.
Screening of final video
MURAP Festival
October, 2 – 2021 – 06,30 p.m.
Auditorium Petruzzi – Pescara
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Theater Play
October, 2 – 2021 – 06,30 p.m.
Museo delle Genti d’Abruzzo – Pescara
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Bagno Borbonico – a deep dive into the past.
Tour-show by Florian Metateatro in collaboration with Museo delle Genti d’Abruzzo in the interior of the old Pescara penitentiary. Written and directed by Giulia Basel with Umberto Marchesani.