Una serata speciale per i ragazzi di Menti Libere che hanno esposto per la prima volta li materiale raccolto lungo la Balcan Route. Ecco a voi alcune foto della serata scattate dalle sapienti mani di Aghite Pavan.
Prima esposizione del progetto Migrart all’interno della rassegna culturale Avostanis: appuntamento al 1 settembre a Villacaccia di Lestizza
Dopo aver vissuto un’esperienza creativa e di condivisione con un gruppo di richiedenti asilo, tre giovani di Lignano hanno deciso di ripercorrere a ritroso il percorso della rotta balcanica, dal Friuli con destinazione la Siria, utilizzando l’arte come mezzo di interazione. Per la durata di tre mesi hanno fatto un viaggio di quattromila chilometri con l’utilizzo di vari mezzi di trasporto, arrivando fino al confine turco-siriano.
Un rotolone di trenta metri di carta munito di pennarelli (lo si potrà contemplare in esclusiva nella serata), ha permesso loro di entrare in connessione empatica con le persone incontrate nelle diverse tappe del viaggio. Al rientro hanno elaborato un processo di decantazione e di elaborazione, grazie al quale ora possono mettere in comune con il pubblico per la prima volta un materiale vivo, che documenta le esperienze fatte, sotto forma di mostra interattiva. I visitatori avranno modo di immedesimarsi in maniera attiva e coinvolgente nelle forti suggestioni ed emozioni che questi tre giovani hanno provato sulla loro pelle. Ad allietare la serata ci sarà la musica dell’ Irie Trio .
Per godere a pieno dell’interattività offerta dalla mostra consigliamo di portarsi appresso smartphone e delle cuffiette per l’ascolto sonoro.
After having been fed for many days by the bosom of the sacred countryside we decided to move again toward the river made by walking souls.
Along the way the great cathedrals leave te way to the minarets who come out here and there like mushrooms while we walk alongside the mountains getting near the Macedonian land.
Kosovo is just there, a few steps from us, closed between the mountains and stuck by the international blocks. A land that creates and stand watching the parade of thousands of refugees every day. We arrive at Presevo, a muslim enclave with majority of Albanians in the Serbian orthodox reign. And it is right here, in the headquarter of the first Serbian registration center, that we meet again the uncontainable human river. All the work is done at the train station where, once registered, those people spend infinite hours waiting a train directed to the Croatian borderline. Another inexorable waiting.
Children running here and there on the railway lines, mothers trying to warm their poor, cold creatures, tattooed grannies specialized in waiting and a couple getting caught by the love under a thermal blanket. Everything happens between volunteers distributing clothes and hot drinks and taxi drivers always ready to carry home some earning.
Suddenly the paper roll is being opened letting out all the light that it’s carrying deep inside. Like a magic all the barriers are destroyed, a channel of direct interaction is created, no word is needed.
Drawings perfectly describing their situation, like the one made by Huseyn, 10 years old, from Aleppo, in which a bird is carrying the last fruits of a dead tree to a new home. The travel of the hope.
It’s wonderful to see the sweet manner with which the art can destroy any kind of barrier.
The man, instead, build them.
Indeed since few days that enormous human river had dramatically reduced. From one day to the other men inaugurated a gigantic dam, as big as the inhuman engineering capacity could build it. A dam that’s separating a fat continent from all those outskirts that are only asking for a piece of bread. Only Syrian, Afghan and Iraqi water can pass trough, all the other rivers are stopped there, flooding the surrounding area. Stuck. It’s been as if in Iran there’s not a violent dictatorship, if in Somalia there’s not Al Shabaab or in Nigeria Boko Haram, as if Pakistan isn’t the cradle of terrorism.
It’s as if a man can choose between who has the right to live and who hasn’t.
Everyday those people walk along the railway line that’s passing through this tent city to check if the dam is opened or not. Water bullets are falling from the sky and the great Mafia of the hospitality offers only a biscuit pack, some chocolate and a bottle of water. You can buy everything else from the little stalls here for this sad occasion.
The land is covered with mountains of garbage acting like fuel for getting a little warmer. A man with frozen feet tries to heat his body with the fire lit from a little oil fell onto the rail. Probably the same oil stolen from the place where that man, like many others, belong. The oil can go anywhere, not them.
A granny dressed all in black clothes as if she was in mourning for all the humanity is grabbing her granddaughter’s hand, with her pink balloon full of hope. A Congolese boy stuck by the cold temperature and by despair repeats incessantly: “I prefer to die instead to go back there”.
There is also who stitched his lips together as a sign of protest and who’s thinking about scenic suicide as the only way to unlock that situation. The stress is reaching the limit. Everything under the miser eyes of the taxi drivers, sandwich sellers and hotel owners who converts their halls into supermarkets and rent the floor of their basement and maybe their wife too. Everything under the eyes of the volunteers and reporters hit by an enormous sense of impotence that kills every hope in a better tomorrow.
A majestic and invisible dam. On one side a continent eating handsomely, on the other all it’s victims arrived from every mistreated place to ask the right to stay alive. A basin of stuck water growing everyday more. Soon it will became a sea and as that gigantic stone will fall from the mountain it will be a disaster.
Dopo un mese di girovagare per centri urbani decidiamo di metterci in cammino verso l’affascinante mondo rurale. Con i nostri pesanti zaini mangiamo kilometri riuscendo pian piano a staccarci dai tentacoli di luccicanti e forse futili comodità della città.
Dopo qualche giorno ci immergiamo finalmente in quel luogo senza tempo chiamato natura. Veniamo travolti dalla sua ospitalità così maestosa ed egualitaria ritrovandoci in un universo mistico che non conosce confini nè fa distinzione alcuna tra i suoi abitanti, alberi, pecore o contadini che siano.
Un pastore con le sue mucche ci dà il buongiorno portando un pò di luce nella fitta nebbia che permea la strada nelle prime ore del mattino ed un inaspettato passaggio in autostop. Un uomo ci carica sul suo fuoristrada militare mostrandoci il meglio di questa valle : dalla magica vista dalla vetta più alta della Serbia alla rakia usata come mezzo di comunicazione conviviale, dal taglio di legna nel bosco all’assaggio di cervello bollito di una mucca appena trapassata.
Come un uragano questa valle ci fa assaporare tutta la sua spontanea ospitalità.
Ecco, abbiamo finalmente incontrato la Santa Ruralità.
Percorriamo altri sentieri e una radio a tutto volume ci attira nei pressi di quella che più che una casa assomiglia ad un’officina rudimentale. In mezzo al dolce trambusto di mele ed attrezzi un uomo di bassa statura si aggira in modo simpatico nel suo regno, basta qualche cenno ed un’occhiata che ci ritroviamo accolti come figli ed assunti come woofer da quest’uomo straordinario.
Palbebre che riparano gli occhi dal freddo e mani nerborute che raccontano storie di mele raccolte e radio riparate. Tanta saggezza quanto il tempo trascorso tra queste montagne ed un’innocenza contagiosa in ogni suo gesto.
Un uomo, Vladimir Aleksov, che dalla sua casetta di un piccolo villaggio di terra e paglia incarna il regno della pace.
Luoghi e persone incontaminate spontaneamente elette a portatori di quell’ormai rara arte dell’ospitalità.
Ed è proprio ora che, in un momento storico in cui ci fanno credere che ospitare questi flussi di profughi sia impossibile oltre che indesiderato, dovremmo attingere a questo mai come ora prezioso tesoro.
A stream of souls crosses the tortuous Bulgarian territory every day between geographical and human obstacles, between wooded mountains and corrupt policemen. After difficult days it can’ finally flow free and pour into that multi-ethnic oasis called Belgrade.
A varied universe of individuals awaits him.
Unscrupulous businessmen always ready to offer their overpriced services to new and unaware customers. People who continue their daily routine as if nothing had happened among indifferent students and can collectors. Men and women who donate time and energy every day to try to offer a human welcome to these traveling souls.
In the meantime we also arrive in Belgrade where we volunteer at the Miksaliste Refugee Aid Center, center born from the spontaneous citizen solidarity movement.
A family-friendly and barrier-free reception system in which everyone, refugees and volunteers, they feel free and involved. After the tragic passage to Bulgaria they are all relieved to feel in a peaceful environment. Between a hot chai and a pair of new shoes, stories and smiles escape.
Then there are three formidable girls who every afternoon use art as a means of interaction in that park which for months has become the entertainment lounge for the refugees who have arrived in the city.
Musica, dance and drawing as universal languages that break down every existing barrier, art as a pure vehicle of peace.
E’ so that between one drawing and another you can let yourself go, this is how we end up involved and overwhelmed by the stories of these kids. Who leaves for a better future, those who flee from horror and those who leave for love. Different motivations, a single troubled journey and a big smile of hope.
Sarajevo, Sunday 15 November 2015
P.S. A heartfelt thank you to Refugee Aid Serbia, to the Jovanovic family, to Jelena with her apartment in the Block 70, to domestic beer Jelen, below is rakia Serba, to all the Pekaras who filled us with burek, al Green Lounge Hostel, on Radio Onde Furlane who almost knocked Lillo's legs, to Good Pizza, to the military tram controllers and the super girls Teodora, Dalia e Hemnalina.
We would like a book to be born from the journey of Tommaso Lillo and Paolo …An experience to tell with their travel diaries and photos, but also with the drawings made by migrants during the art workshops and other illustrations by Cactart (Tommaso).
Per realizzare questo libro però ci sono dei costi che le nostre “casse” they can't afford...! E’ That's why we put our project on Kickstarter, so that anyone who feels like it can contribute… Fundraising ends on 30 December and you can support it by connecting to the link below …. A hug to everyone
Il “voyage” it's a meeting, more than ever for us who were lucky enough to meet and interact with around eighty Afghan and Pakistani refugees who arrived, in November 2014, in a cold Lignano Sabbiadoro, rainy and extremely suspicious of these guests.
We are three twenty-year-olds, Tommaso Sandri, Alessandro Sandri and Paolo Tavani, e dopo questa straordinaria esperienza umana cominciata con una partita di calcio sull’arenile deserto e proseguita con una serie di attività di volontariato “comunitario”, abbiamo deciso di intraprendere “al contrario” il medesimo percorso di migrazione dei nostri “profugamici”. We will then leave from Friuli to reach the Turkish-Syrian border.
This trip, which we expect to last about three months, we would like it to represent a hug, a rapprochement towards that increasingly demonized part of the world.
We will then reach each border on foot, hitchhiking or, when it becomes necessary, by public transport and although each of us is perfectly aware that it will not be like the desperate adventure undertaken by our friends, However, we would like it to symbolize a path of equality.
E sarà attraverso il linguaggio universale dell’ ARTE che cercheremo di comunicare ad ogni confine, focusing more on the hottest spots where, from time to time, we hope to be able to create artistic interactions by placing a large roll of paper on the pavement on which anyone will be free to trace and express what they need to convey and what, at the end of the trip, it will represent a graphic path of all the encounters that occurred along the way. We would also like to leave a small mural drawing in each significant place along the route with the aim of metaphorically connecting each place, like Tom Thumb's crumbs.
We will also produce video material containing interviews, events and scenes of the artistic interactions that we will create as well as wanting to write an illustrated story that contains writings and drawings collected gradually, symbols of the concrete interaction between people and places.
In the end, to make all this happen, we also decided to rely on the Kickstarter fundraising platform to raise funds, therefore the invitation we address to each of you is: travel with us, following us on the Menti Libere Facebook page e, if you can, support us! In any case, Thank you.
The route will be more or less as follows : we will enter Slovenia from Gorizia, and then move on to Ljubljana and from there to Brezice, and then reach the border at Dobova. In Croatia we will go to Zagreb to go to Opatovac and Tovarnik and from here we will enter Serbia towards Sid. Once in Belgrade we will move on to Bosnia to visit places that are symbols of the meeting and clash between West and East : Srebrenica, Sarajevo and Visegrad before returning to Serbia and going to Nis for its pyramid of skulls. From here the route will take the direction of Macedonia, after the Presevo registration camp we will enter Macedonia at Tabanovtse. From here we will move to Skopje and then straight towards Gevgelija station, from where we will enter Gracia towards Idomeni. Dopo un periodo in Grecia entreremo in Turchia e a Istanbul dove ci soffermeremo per un progetto d’arte nel centro comunitario per profughi siriani gestiti dall’ ONG Support The Life che opera anche in molti centri sul confine con la Siria. From there we will go to Izmir from where we will embark for Lesvos. Returning to Türkiye we will continue towards Konya and then towards the southern coast, a Mersin. From here we will move to Kilis where a friend will guide us. From here we will understand whether it will be appropriate to enter Iraqi Kurdistan. At each stage we will come into contact with the associations that operate in the various refugee camps and we will use the very useful Refugee Help Map, a constantly updated picture of the situation at the various points of the Balkan Route.
Info are a movie: The director Renzo Carbonera from Lignano, immediately interested in our project, went out of his way to sign an agreement with the Paduan production company Officina Immagine which provided us with the equipment to collect audiovisual material along the route. The videos shot will be used for the creation of the docu-film which will then be edited by the aforementioned Renzo Carbonera.
BIOGRAPHY
Tommaso Sandri_
Born in Latisana (UD) In the 1992 and grew up in the peculiar locality of Lignano Sabbiadoro, from an early age he expressed a strong aptitude for travel, both physical and mental. As soon as he finished his studies at the Scientific High School he immediately left for Brazil, where for three months he lived as a volunteer in some social projects. Upon his return, with a small group of friends, the artistic collective MentiLibere is born, a group that through Art aims to bring together and raise awareness of issues such as interculturality and sustainability. From there he undertook travels to Peru, India and Southern Europe making painting his profession.
Paolo Tavani_
Born in Latisana in 1987 and grew up in the strange town of Lignano Sabbiadoro, from an early age he showed a propensity for movement and contact with nature. As soon as he finished his professional studies he started working as a gardener, work that brought him ever closer to the natural world. With every free moment he always chose the path of travel, from climbing to walking. Since its inception it has been part of the MentiLibere art collective.
Alessandro Lillo Sandri_
Born in Latisana in 1984 and growing up in Lignano Sabbiadoro he always had the gift of speaking even if not at school. After studying graphics he chose the path of a bartender, gaining some travel and work experiences in Spain and Mexico. He has always continued to cultivate a passion for art and communication. In the 2012 he was one of the founders and promoters of the art collective MentiLibere.