The blow-up of the sweet and smiling face of Giulia Cecchettinthe Venetian student killed on November 11th last by her ex-boyfriend Filippo Turetta. And around the portraits of many others victims of femicideeach complete with a short caption recalling their horrible end.
The Spoon River
There are the twenty-six year old from Treviso Vanessa Ballan, «killed with seven stab wounds (by a man she had dated). She was pregnant”, the peer Carol Maltesi«torn to pieces and thrown into a cliff» by her former Veronese partner Davide Fontana, Vincenza Angrisano, 42 years old, “stabbed to death (by her husband) in front of her children” in Bari. And many others. An endless Spoon River (41 women killed in Italy in 2023, 14 in the first months of this year), which seeks to speak to consciences and which animates Gianluca Costantini’s installation «There are loves without paradise», designed with a diameter of 20 meters and visible from 7 to 12 May in Piazza Libertà in Udine, as part of the «Vicino/Lontano. Terzani Award”.
«Reflect and feel guilty»
«I started drawing the faces of these women, often smiling or with melancholic expressions – he says Gianluca Costantini, engaged in civil and humanitarian battles through drawing and also alongside ActionAid, Amnesty International and Arci -. Then I added only the name and how they were killed, without further details. The cruelty with which they were murdered, hammered, hanged, dismembered, stabbed, strangled, shot or burned, strikes me deeply. This is not a series of drawings of victims of a serial killer, they are portraits of ordinary people, women killed by their partners, young men, elderly people: it makes no difference. Violence manifests itself in a brutal way. The gallery of faces does not want to be only a complaint, but also a sense of guilt. As a man, I feel guilty every time a new name appears in the news – underlines the artist -. I am not guilty but I recognize the experience of possession, of a love based on the control instilled by society and which for many men translates into absurd and inconceivable, senseless violence: better to destroy you than to lose you. Better to end up in prison than to be alone. I imagine what a tragedy this is for the families involved. Here, this is the meaning of the installation: a sense of absolute helplessness.”
Series of events
«There are loves without paradise» will be inaugurated on May 7th, at 7.30 pm in Piazza Libertà in Udine. The lawyer Maddalena Bosio, involved in human rights issues, in particular the right to asylum, women’s rights, gender violence and family law, will speak. A celebration that coincides with the opening of the program of the twentieth edition of «Vicino/Lontano», this year focused on the key word «metamorphosis» and which until May 12th, with 200 guests protagonists of 120 meetingswill explore the transformations taking place on a geopolitical, economic-social, technological-scientific, environmental and anthropological level (info and program on www.vicinolontano.it).
