FRUITS OF GLORY

 

This installation is sits inside a large mortar crater. We can expect nothing from such a destructive event, nor from such a desolate place. Yet, here, lifeless trees, all dried up, are “born” which in the future will bear neither leaves nor fruit because they originate from a genetic mutation caused by the War. On their trunks only large “dog tags” emerge, objects that soldiers have worn around their necks from the time of the Great War onwards for identifi cation.

We ourselves feel that what we are doing
is just a drop in the ocean.
But
the ocean would be less
because of that missing drop.

Madre Teresa di Calcutta

THE IMMORTALS

The glade surrounding this composition is covered with huge whitish rocks, stones common to this area. The group of stones that make up the composition is different from the others: each stone, in fact, bears symbolically carved initials, in Memory of the innumerable soldiers who lost their Lives or who went missing during the Wars.

BLACK MAZE

 

This installation takes its cue from the very place in which it is located and from the presence of huge rocks. The rocks are assembled so as to allow only one person through at a time, who will be turning towards the heart of the composition, virtually entering a maze, within which rises a square block of black granite with the word Peace carved out in it in 36 languages – surrounded by a forest of whitish boulders. An Iindisputable value, hidden by the anonymous whiteness of daily life, a possibility offered to all.

General, your tank is a powerful vehicle
It smashes down forests and crushes a hundred men.
But it has one defect:
It needs a driver.
General, your bomber is powerful.
It flies faster than a storm and carries more than an elephant.
But it has one defect:
It needs a mechanic.
General, man is very useful.
He can fly and he can kill.
But he has one defect:
He can think. 

Bertold Brecht

LIVING FLOWER

 

The composition is made up of a series of gigantic flowers fashioned from “corten steel”. A mass of rusty fl owers, a sad testimony to destruction, redeemed by a coloured flower placed at the centre, a messenger of hope and faith that after such destruction Life will once again flower and germinate.

ARMIES

 

This composition represents the two armies (Italian and Austro-Hungarian) which faced each other during the Great War in the surrounding mountains. Helmets, similar to those worn by the two armies, stand in opposition to each other, symbolically placed to face the same directions as the armies did during the period of combat. The two formations of helmets stand in homage to the moment of battle, whose only outcome will be Death, symbolised by four skulls placed in the centre.

"The single great evil
that must be opposed
is not one group of people or another,
but rather the fear and hatred
that continue to find root in human hearts."

Mairead Corrigan Maguire, Premio Nobel per la Pace 1976
Betty Williams, Premio Nobel per la Pace 1976
Adolfo Perez Esquivel, Premio Nobel per la Pace 1980
Desmon Mpilo Tutu, Premio Nobel per la Pace 1984
14° Dalai Lama (Tenzin Gyatso), Premio Nobel per la Pace 1989
Rigoberta Menchu Tum, Premio Nobel per la Pace 1992
Joseph Rotblat, Premio Nobel per la Pace 1995
Jody Williams, Premio Nobel per la Pace 1997