In this moment Italy is living a real dark age, in culture as well as in hospitality.
More and more people are considering hate and racism as a solution for our own crisis, making of immigrants an easy target.
In Italy, migrants arrive after traveling on unstable boats across the Mediterranean Sea.
They arrive half dead. The luckiest among them.
Many others do not reach our shores, so that the Mediterranean gradually turned, over the last years, into a cemetery, burying women, men, and children.
Many children.
I decided to explore the theme of migration through visual art to remember those times when ITALIANS were the migrants.
Italians have a big tradition of migrating to other places, but nevertheless, many of us are now blaming the migrants who reach our country, thus disavowing our own history.
Italy has traditionally been a place of passage and migration because of its peculiar position in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea.
Wars, domination, and cultural and commercial exchanges have made the Italian culture what it is nowadays: a mix of traditions, languages, and customs.
Its history is what makes Italy one of the richest countries in terms of art and culture.
The Italian richness comes from what each people left to us after their passage.
I want to analyze the theme of migration inspired not only from what is happening in Italy and in the Mediterranean Sea, but from what seems to be, today, a global phenomenon of intolerance and hatred towards the “OTHER”.
Regardless of your origin, and of your religious and political beliefs, the message that comes through this exploration, is one of respect towards the OTHER, celebrating the other as a fundamental part of everybody roots and culture.
I hope that everyone that now is ready to send a boat full of desperate people out at sea, will one day remember that those people has always been, and always will be, part of our cultural richness.
And I hope that, as every community in the world is becoming more and more multi ethnic, reflecting on what immigrants bring with them in terms of culture and personal experiences will be a way to facilitate and promote integration and to defeat intolerance.
In this specific historical moment, we all need this kind of reflection, and we all need to transform our reflections into an open dialogue.
With Love,
Laura Grimaldi
To know more about my blog, click here
Click here to visit my blog, and subscribe if you want to receive my new articles via e-mail