Walking through the new public parks of Iglesias, Musei, Domusnovas and Villamassargia, you’ll now meet monstrous and glittering fountains, cities-antennas of insects suspended on trees, stone maps from which you can let your gaze fly, playing fields with irregular borders and rules all to be invented, adventurous paths among strawberry trees, myrtles, pear and carob trees… In this photo gallery you’ll see a selection of the works already installed in the new parks made during the project “I giardini possibili”
After the series of workshops held by Dragos Olea (Apparatus 22), Yassine Balbzioui, Dexi Tian and Amy Sow, some of the children’s drawings and ideas were developed and to be transformed into viable public space installation for the 4 new parks of the project, trying to preserve as much as possible the original vibe of the initial idea. Cherimus in collaboration with the Barega association began to install the first artifacts in January 2021. This gallery shows some of the backstage of the work, focusing on the creation and installation of the “fountains” for the park of Domusnovas.
During the first edition of Caro Giacomo, in 2008, artist Marco Colombaioni, co-founder of Cherimus, decided to display a painting on a wall in a small square of the town, in the spirit of that first edition that invited the artists to propose and install artworks outdoors or in public spaces of Perdaxius.
At that time, Marco Colombaioni had already taken a series of trips to Nairobi where he had worked and collaborated with artists based there, and was intensively studying Kanga textiles, popular items produced and used in Kenya and Tanzania. Each Kanga has a specific meaning, containing a message, a proverb, or an aphorism.
This painting has the structure of a Kanga, with a large decorative frame and, in the center, a scene with two birds and a hibiscus flower. One bird is flying away, and the other is approaching the flower. In Swahili, the phrase on the painting says: dreams guide us, but we must act. The painting was exhibited for the three days of the town feast. On one of these nights, the painting was vandalized, necessitating a restoration of the piece.
Later, Colombaioni collaborated on a project with sociologist Judith Raymond Mushi, who started the first university course on Swahili language and culture in Milan. The project focused on fighting homophobia through the production of new special Kangas with new messages. Together, Colombaioni and Mushi organized a Kanga Kokomanga Party in January 2011 to raise funds to support the project. They also worked together on a design for a new Kanga with a quote by Pasolini: “L’innocenza è una colpa,” which translates to “Innocence is a fault.” This fruitful collaboration ended suddenly when Marco Colombaioni passed away in July 2011.
At the end of July of that year, for the Festival of Saint James, Cherimus organized a celebration in honor of Marco in the small square where the painting had been shown a few years before. A 1:1 scale reproduction on paper of his work “Dreams guide us, but we must act” was installed on the same wall where the painting once hung. That evening, visual artist Emiliana Sabiu presented, for the second time, “Twenty Cakes.” In this piece, 20 real cakes and pies made by the community of Perdaxius were displayed on a table with an elegant tablecloth. Artist Samba “Bathie” Tounkara curated the music for the celebration and provided touba coffee to the attendees.
In 2014, for the annual festival of Caro Giacomo, Cherimus decided to make a permanent mosaic version of the painting on that same wall. The mosaic was made using tile samples offered by various retailers in collaboration with visual artists Gemma Noris, Josè Chaves, Scarlett Lingwood, Hamdy Reda, Andrea Rossi, and Carlo Spiga.
Deggo Yëggo emerged from the encounter between some of the most interesting and innovative artists in Sardinian and Senegalese music, who, starting from their own musical heritage, have developed a research project based on contemporary practice. The group came to life in Dakar, in 2019, thanks to the international cooperation project music@work, subsidized by Regione Autonoma della Sardegna and organized by the Cherimus association together with the University of Sassari, The Nivola Museum of Orani, Sardegna Teatro, and the municipalities of Perdaxius and Carbonia, in collaboration with the Senegalese Dakar-based association Kër Thiossane, Villa pour l’art et le multimédia.
The photo gallery summarizes some of the most significant moments of the encounter of the musicians in Dakar after months of remote collaboration, including their rehearsals, their first public concert in the Kër Thiossane headquarters, and the recording of the songs created or reinvented on the occasion of this meeting in Pape Konatè’s studio. All pictures are by Umberto Santoro.
Deggo Yëggo concert at Kër Thiossane, june 29th 2019. Foto: Umberto SantoroDeggo Yëggo concert at Kër Thiossane, june 29th 2019. Foto: Umberto Santoro
In one of her letters to
Fawwaz Traboulsi, published in Of Cities and
Women, Lebanese artist and poet Etel Adnan
wrote that if it weren’t for the sea, Beirut would not have
survived devastation. “But there is salt on the ground, in our
mouths, on our clothes, in our hands; something that resists
putrefaction,” she told him.
In Arabic, there is a
saying that goes: “Do a good deed and throw in the sea.” The sea
here is a metaphor for what we leave behind us in order to move on.
It speaks of our capacity to let go and to transform. Throw
in the sea is about releasing what stands in
our way, what we no longer need, what is not in flow. It is an
invitation to be like the sea: always
in motion, ever changing, and yet perpetually harmonious.
For this project, this
saying was the harbor from where we set out to sail. The sea became a
space of transmutation and imagination; as well as a space that
transcends differences and
brings together diverse communities that
are geographically, historically and culturally connected to the
Mediterranean. This unifying mass of water carries the dreams and
myths of those who live next to it, stroll by it, jump in it, are
captured by it, write and sing about it… The project is an attempt
to decode and record these narratives. By doing so, it aims to create
a space for the collective unconscious to be heard and for
alternative histories to be revealed.
The project consists of two parts in dialogue with each other. One part will take place in Sardinia, the other in Lebanon.
In Sardinia, the project will move across the Sulcis, reaching out to different communities from the region and inviting them to participate to multidisciplinary workshops and activities.
As the project moves from
one place to another, it becomes a record of the unheard: of voices
that have been stung by revelation; of voices that are in constant
search of the sea within and outside of them. It is a record of our
collective imagination and one that ultimately finds its way back to
the sea.
In parallel to the activity in Sardinia, Ibrahim will collect soundscapes and conduct short interviews with different groups of people who live close to or have a specific relationship with the sea in Lebanon.
The idea is to create a weaving of the sounds from both sides, Lebanon and Sardinia, to tell the story of journeying towards the sea collectively and individually, what happens along the way, and how we will in the end, irrespective of our different paths, all meet at the sea.
Project commissioned by TBA21-Academy as part of The Current III: “Mediterraneans: ’Thus waves come in pairs’ (after Etel Adnan)”, curated by Barbara Casavecchia
Chadal is the name of a Sardinian-Senegalese band, created as part of an international cooperation project, organized by Cherimus in collaboration with Kër Thiossane, ville pour l’art et le multimedia, based in Dakar and Orchestre National du Sénégal. The project’s idea was to strengthen and deepen the dialogue between Sardinian and Senegalese people, the latter representing the largest African community within the Italian island.
Sardinian guitar player Alberto Balia, launeddas Player Andrea Pisu, trumpeter Riccardo Pittau and pianist Matteo Scano met in Dakar with songwriters Bah Moody and Marcel Diabia Ndong, Balafon player Sidi Koita, xalam player Alioune Ndiaye, kora player Baka Cissokho, bass player Alassane Cissè and collaborated in creating a new band and a new album.
Chadal debuted in Dakar on May 20, 2011, before embarking on a concert tour across Sardinia and the North of Italy. The visionary set of the concerts was created during a series of workshops held in Dakar in collaboration with visual artist Abdoulaye Cysso Manee, Espace Enfants de la Maison de la Culture Douta Seck and École Mamour Diakhate, classe CPB as well as in several small towns of Sulcis, where both Sardinian and Senegalese children also built traditional instruments from their respective regions and exchanged them.
