Eleonora De Chiara
I decided to take part of Artists@Work because was the best way to develop my ideas.
The focus on social issues allowed me to present a project that I've thought about for a while and finally I can realize with the help of the trainers and other artist. What I find interesting is the opportunity to know more also about social realities in the other part of Italy, France and Bosnia.
I expect that these workshops will be moments of growth for my narrative, social and graphic skills.
The subjects of my project are the wildfires across southern Italy of the past summer.
In particulary I want to talk about my homeland, the region of Campania and its landmark the Vesuvio. The National Park of Vesuvio lose in the past July, 1600 hectares of forest and 100 species. Over 130 thousand tons of CO2 in the environment, with an estimate of about 20 years for the return of trees.
The park's landscape now is completely black and the floor full of charcoal.
The focus of my work is on this material, the charcoal, one of the oldest material for drawing. The idea is to use the charcoal for illustrate the story of this environmental disaster. These black and smoky scenarios together with stories, moods and reports will compose the final result.
My research process started with the first inspection on the National Park where:
-I took the charcoal for draw;
-I talked with volunteers and abitans;
-I took pictures.
My work now is focusing on:
-volunteers and abitans' stories (selection of story’s details, other elements of scenario);
-material’s sperimentation (different kind of paper and/or support, photography elements);
-identifing strong points of view of the park for illustrate.
The title maestri della resilienza - masters of resilience is not the final title but want to put attention on the pratice of the project and on what is its aim.
Drawing with the remains of the wildfires want to remaind at typical behavior of Mediterranean ecosystems and people. These territories characterized by a history of variability of many environmental factors, have evolved a strong resilience to natural events such as fires, strong storms, the collapse of rocky ridges.
At same time I see the Mediterranean society very similar to the ecosystems, for its resistence and its ability to recover strength, spirits and good humor after difficulties.
