Elyas Alavi, at the MUSMA in Matera an exhibition that talks about exile

That I Could Fear a Door: stories of houses and wind: the first solo show in Italy by Hazara artist Elyas Alavi at Musma

The events continue at MUSMA, Sculpture Museum of Matera, which presented last June 13th That I Could Fear a Door: stories of houses and windthe Hazara artist’s first solo exhibition in Italy Elyas Alavicurated by the Exo Art Lab collective and Simona Spinella.

The title “That I Could Fear a Door” (“that I may fear a door“) is a line taken from Emily Dickinson’s poem The Years had been from Home (I – Years – had been – away from Home). A “wooden laugh” – writes the poet – is the only sound that she can echo in a chest made hollow by years away from home. Borrowing Dickinson’s verse, the spaces of Palazzo Pomarici therefore open up to an intimate reflection on the concepts of home, belonging and uprooting, in a connection that spiritually unites the artist’s experience with the history of Matera.

Elyas Alavi, an Afghan Hazara currently active in Australia, is a multidisciplinary artist who focuses his research on the complex relationships between the individual and society, in relation to issues such as ethnic and cultural belonging, religion, sexual orientation, diaspora and the meaning of the word “home”. Through neon, video and poetry, Elyas uses his own experience as a starting point to investigate the effects of a forced separation from his country and his loved ones, observing the disorientation in the face of a land that becomes inhospitable for those forced into exile.

The artist performed in an exciting multi-sensory performance, in which his poetic verses were accompanied by a delicate sound of a cello, all within one of the museum rooms in which, in the light of some ‘neon’ that the artist placed on the tuff walls, he expressed himself by painting, through the mixing of pictorial pigment with tuff dust, some sentences on the meaning of life.

Words mixed with the earth therefore, the story that comes true, the present that joins the past through the creative act. The performance continued with a touching metaphor about the flavor of existence. By sprinkling “salt” on a stylized stone sculpture, in fact, Elyas Alavi brought out some important themes for him: the poem he recited told of the salt used to flavor food, life, but that if used too much, the latter , in the end it can cover every single flavor.

They are the emotions that made the Afghan artist’s performance unique, neon with red and blue writing that allude to pain and beauty, immersed in an almost timeless place where everything seems to stop, the words whispered through verses that led to reflection on the meaning of reality, on the blood that has been shed and that will be shed, on the deepest meaning of the entire existence, that is, the real meaning of the value of life… of every single and smallest life.

The exhibition really deserves to be visited, through the path ‘traced’ by him you will find the hand-written verses on the canvas, the neon lights that will suggestively illuminate the ancient walls with their most intrinsic and profound sense; as well as the beautiful paintings in which the painter depicted barely stylized women who still seem to listen, almost incessantly, to the delicate notes of the cello being played.

Dr. Maria De Lorenzo
Expert and Art Expert in civil and criminal matters at the Court of Matera
https://dottmariadelorenzo.wixsite.com/website