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Dragos Olea of Apparatus 22 arrived in Sulcis on November 11th; it was his first time in Sardinia and his first collaboration with Cherimus. He spent two weeks with us, leading eight workshops in Villamassargia, Domusnovas, Musei, and Iglesias and presenting his work to the public at Villamassargia: two intense weeks to officially launch the project “The Possible Gardens.”
The first week was dedicated to getting to know the children and the parks, to understanding the wishes and the dreams of the kids through their words and their drawings. Dragos also shared the work of Apparatus 22, focusing on public projects carried out across Europe.

The first meeting with each class consisted of a visit to the garden made available for the project. In Villamassargia, it’s a former cemetery; decommissioned for years, it still retains traces of the avenue that cut it in two, lined by cypress and palms. The children have reconquered the space and have imagined castles and flags, crazily-outlined playing fields, houses of flowers, burrows where one can look for shamrocks and collect lucky symbols. Dragos is very curious and asks many questions to the children, visiting them in their favorite little corner, where they’re already very much at home.

The garden of Domusnovas has at its center a large tree with open arms, a carob tree within which the children gathered as in a magic flask. Someone has imagined the carob tree at the center of an intricate labyrinth, a place in which to play and get lost and find each other again. On the tree in the center there is also a house in which musical instruments are collected. In Musei, the smallest village, the class is made up of ten students, in reality two classes in one: one fourth and one fifth grade class. The village was rapidly depopulated, the teacher tells us, after the closure of the Portovesme industrial plant. The garden is a narrow tongue of green between two streets; it is difficult to imagine a park in it. But the children composed it naturally, extending the limits of that little handkerchief of a park, envisioning in it an open-air dance school; a rich orchard to take care of and from which to collect fresh fruit; a track that goes up and down where one can ride horses and motorcycles; a bush where one can bring their own favorite animals, hens, dogs and cats; and finally, a thread suspended between the trees for attaching drawings for an annual festival. Dragos wrote all this in his notebook, thought to himself and smiled.

Working in Iglesias immediately after Musei is strange: we felt as though we were passing from a remote rural village to the core of a gigantic metropolis. Its park is the largest of the four and has two floors: a high hill, dense with trees, from which a little triangle of sea and the mining town and hills of Monteponi can be seen between the houses. Rolling down the steep descent to the foot of the hill, one finds oneself on a flat meadow where it is lovely to run free. In fact, the children did run, up and down, and one even rolled down the hill and thought that such a thing must absolutely be included in the park, that the grassy slopes must be preserved.

In the woods, someone imagined a magical dwelling for inventing spells, another a planetarium where the motion of the stars is determined from the flight of owls, and yet another proposed monuments dedicated to Hypatia and Frida Kahlo. Dragos followed the children and tried to imagine what lay beyond the houses, beyond the hills, out there where a child would want to be able to see from the top of a tree.
The following week, at school, everything became solid and spectacular. The children collected paper, fabrics, and all kinds of gaudy materials to shape their ideas and make models of them. Many things have changed since the first meeting: the children have worked in groups to combine the ideas and forces that provoked by Dragos’s presence. On Dragos’s part, he has studied their ideas and proposed many possible ways of developing them. In Villamassargia, the den has become a mini pinnetta, a typical Sardinian stone building. The playing field now has a jagged perimeter that recalls the old maps of Sardinia, and here and there doors and passages arise from the grass, every element linked by rules of the game yet to be written. In Domusnovas, labyrinths in the form of mice are imagined, as well as astronomical observatories and theatrical stages, all around the carob tree. In Musei, barres for dancing, axes of balance, a track for horses and motorcycles, and a thread to attach drawings became a single line going up and down across the orchards and grass. In Iglesias, the animals multiply: octopuses, owls, turtles, dragons, and panda-corns. The observation point becomes an elastic rainbow carpet, even equipped with an elevator…

At the end of the workshops there was time left to visit the MAN of Nuoro and, on our way back, the well of Santa Cristina. We greeted Dragos immediately after visiting the flea market in Cagliari, a beautiful sunny morning at the end of November. The adventure of “The Possible Gardens” has really begun!

Yassine Balbzioui flew to Sardinia directly from Marseilles where he attended an artist residency at La Friche la Belle de Mai.
Yassine already knew Sardinia and Cherimus very well: in 2011 he collaborated on the project Happy April, creating workshops throughout the Sulcis-Iglesiente area with Marco Colombaioni; in 2013 we worked together in the towns of Masainas, Giba, Villaperuccio, Perdaxius and Piscinas for the project La biblioteca fantastica; and in 2015 he was with us in the Sant’Elia’s neighborhood in Cagliari for the Sardinian part of the project Côte À Côte, begun the year before in Rabat, Morocco.
Primarily a painter, Yassine Balbzioui uses sculpture, installation and performance in his practice, spreading a visionary and playful force with both hands that encourages the observer to recalibrate their relationship with the world.
After the work of collecting and developing key ideas for the parks carried out with Dragos Olea of ​​Apparatus 22, Yassine set his work on the physical development of the various projects that emerged. He wanted to immerse himself in the four parks by accepting the “utopian challenge”, as the artist calls it, that the project I giardini possibili proposes: a transformation that really starts with children, not as a pretext but as a foundation.
The classrooms were thus emptied of their benches and transformed from time to time into a wall to decorate and knock down, a dense maze of drawings of fountains, an infinite line with which the body must relate and dance, a large scale model made of moss, clay, chalk and paint—almost a science fiction crèche.
Ideas have been thrust into form, gesture, leap, and fall. The materials were mixed in order to become inextricable, and in this way, possibilities were unleashed and ultimately freed.
Thanks to Yassine Balbzioui, “I giardini possibili“ have traveled much: they too have become living and fluttering creatures.

The idea of organising a carnival came up from some talks Marco and I had when I was in Italy between 2008 and 2009. Marco used to go around to visit Milan’s art galleries and he often took me with him. In those years he kept telling me his idea of bringing a matatu (a minibus for public transportation which is often coloured, airbrushed and filled with loud music) to Milan.

During our talks we realised that Italy, and Europe, celebrate the carnival, which is an explosion of fantasy, just like matatus. Marco was wondering how Kenyan creativity would have been brought to life in a context like that. Carnival is madness, but also an explosion of life and an expression of the beauty of life.

The idea of the carnival has started becoming reality last year, while I was walking along Kabiria Road together with Chiara. We told to ourselves: “The Ciak! Kiberaproject is coming to an end. Our next challenge must be a carnival!” I once went to the Arcireale’s carnival –  Sicily’s most beautiful – where parades with flowers, fire and smoke are organised. The celebrations last an entire week there. This got me imagining what could be generated from a similar experience if it’s brought to Africa. I really want to participate in a carnival in the streets of Nairobi, in Africa, and eventually see it having a life of its own, with its African uniqueness.

The idea of bringing a carnival to Nairobi, and organising it with street children, is brilliant. It gives the opportunity of making something that is still hidden shine. There are so many hidden treasures on the street that remain unknown until you touch them. A rough diamond seems like a worthless rock but if you work with it, it will shine. If you do nothing and ignore street children’s life, you won’t get to know, and understand, what we’re losing as human beings. The fact that we’re finally doing this carnival in Nairobi, after all these years, proves that our idea was like a seed in the conscience of many people and, after a long journey, is now growing.

The carnival gives us the opportunity of opening a magic window. Due to their living conditions, street children believe they can’t make their dreams come true so they keep them just in their heads. The carnival is actually a window that allows the world and society to see these hidden treasures. When it comes to the life on the street, we often see the negative side alone – people living in miserable conditions. But by giving them a chance these people shine. These children manage to do things we can’t even imagine. The carnival makes us see this potential to its fullest.

I think we have the chance of giving children a voice. They communicate in ways we don’t know, and only by doing so we can get to really know them. They’ll send a clear message on what their dreams are. They’ll talk about their everyday life on the street, how they live it, how they like it, what they’re learning from it. This carnival will make us discover the negative and positive sides of street life we don’t know yet. It will make us explore a still unknown world and will let street children teach us the small things that make life more beautiful and that we’re slowly leaving behind.

When we bumped against difficulties during the first workshops, I thought about the Chinese bamboo. The bamboo plant, in fact, grows in a strange way. Planting bamboo may seem a loss of time because you don’t see it growing through the years. Many stop cultivating it indeed. In reality, the plant takes five years to grow a solid network of roots. In the same way, our first (often difficult) encounters in the street were creating a network of relations. We were laying the foundations on which would build.

Building this carnival can be hard work because each group on the street is different and lives diverse experiences. Sometimes it takes more time to understand the dynamics lived on the street. But this allows creating a connection with them, familiarising and making them understand we’re friends who came to participate in their life in a new way. When there will be mutual trust, then our work will take off and speed up because we’ll understand each other faster and more easily. Just like the Chinese bamboo that grows fast and tall after five years, all of a sudden.

This carnival has been put at the service of something precious as it has effects on the idea street children have of themselves, whilst bringing beauty out of the experience they’re living. You can be beautiful inside but if society keeps sending you negative messages about yourself, you start questioning your beauty. When children thrive through an experience of this kind, this helps their self-esteem and reinforces the idea they have of themselves. Even if they’re going through a rough situation, they understand they’re special and that they have something unique in the world. They’ll understand there’s still hope, all is not lost, there’s something we can do. This carnival proves this. It is a proof that there’s life, even on the street.

Okada Buluma was born in Kenya, near Lake Victoria in 1982. He coordinates the educational project of NGO Koinonia community for children and young people. He has lived on the street in his past and loves to play.

During an afternoon break between one workshop in Ngong and another in Kawangware, I went with Ibrahim Nehme, writer-in-residence of the Darajart project, and Elisa Simoncelli, filmmaker and volunteer at Amani for Africa, to Mother House, one of the rescue centres for street children run by Koinonia Community and Amani. There we met street educators Jane Wanjiru (JW) and Mary Osinde (MO), who were previously present and provided support at the various art workshops held by Cherimus as part of the Carnival! Nairobi project. They talk about their relationship with the “bases”: street communities where children and young people involved in the project live.

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Mary, what do you think about the workshops we’re organizing with the kids living on the street?

This project is very positive because it gives street kids the space to be creative, to share their ideas and even… laugh! We’ve seen some of the kids helping each other to draw and express themselves. I can say that the drawings are very useful because they allow us to imagine what these guys would like to be in the future. This could help us especially in the rehabilitation process of some children. Part of this work was useful in view of the International Day of the Street Children celebrated on 12 April, considering that some organisations could take inspiration from the Carnival! Nairobi and maybe reply it. It’s a good thing that there is an exchange of good practice between organisations and institutions.

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What does it mean to be a street educator?

MO: When we go out on the street we meet these young boys. Over three months we try to create a bond: they know our names, we trace the houses from where they fled in order to meet their families before they enter our centres. Meanwhile, we are with them, we do activities, eat and spend time together. They share their thoughts with us and sometimes they open up and start to tell us about why they left home and ended up on the street.

JW: We mainly go to the suburbs of Nairobi. We talk to the boys on the street and we try to contact their families. We try to involve them in many activities like football. We usually do the same with the girls. We also organize a tournament for street children involving the different bases, to unite them. The bases are different from each other, they don’t do the same things, sometimes there have different dynamics.

Through this tournament the bases know and recognize each other, and therefore they can help each other. Last year there was a group of girls who liked football and were looking forward to playing. They also had a coach: at the base there is a field where you can play. It was exciting for them! It was nice to involve all those bases because they had never been in contact with each other for so long. When someone changes a base now, for example from Ngong to Kawangware, we already know each other and it’s like having just one big street family.

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How do you choose the children who enter the rescue centres?

MO: The selection is made for children aged between 6 and 15. In the different bases some children are younger, and age is the only criterion. Before we begin the rehabilitation process we identify their families, and if we aren’t able to do so we turn to social services.

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What do you expect from this carnival?

MO: I try to imagine how they will carry the big floats and how they will wear the masks, because in Kenya nobody has ever seen anything like that. People will say, “Hey, these people are dressed up like what?”. We know the Kenyans and they may think we are crazy, but we know what we’re doing.

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How many bases does Koinonia Community work with?

JW: There are many bases, but I can name a few: we have Kawangware and Sokomjinga, Strong boys, we have Vancouver and Ngong. There are many in the city: we work primarily with Central Park, CBD, Grogon, Mlango, but also Eastleigh, Mtindwa, Muturwa, Gikomba.

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How are the names of the bases chosen?

JW: I think they choose their names according to what they feel they belong to. There is a sense of belonging to something: if they identify with Arsenal (the English football team) they will probably take that name. Most of the time they identify themselves with something they believe in or love. Names are chosen while talking, maybe the name comes out and someone says, “We could call ourselves like that” and so on. For example, the Strong boys feel strong, although they may actually seem weak (laughs).

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As in most bases there are mainly boys, is it difficult for you doing this job being a woman?

JW: When I go to a base, I don’t sit with them at first. I just talk and say, “I’m like your sister,” so we can talk about what happens to them. When they see this approach they feel good to the point that if you have a problem they try to help you because they know you well. When there are activities you can join in and they like that. They tell us, “You can do this with us, come! Let’s go!”, so you feel safe.

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In the base of Mtindwa there are some girls with their children. Why do we only find boys when we arrive in the morning?

JW: I think most of the time, especially in urban areas, girls simply sleep somewhere in the morning. There are, but they go elsewhere in the same area, hide themselves and rest.

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What are your expectations for the carnival?

JW: We have many activities, but this is a new one. Some of the boys ask us: “Why do you ask us to draw?”. When they took part in the workshops and started drawing interesting things, we realised that many of them are talented, but that they never had the opportunity of expressing themselves as such. I’m eager to see the carnival, I know it will be exciting! It’s the first time we have such a thing here.

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During one of the activities we built flags, how did you think it went?

JW: At first we (Victor, who is about 13 years old, and I) designed a sheet metal roof. Then we had to cut the shapes from the fabrics and I thought: “Who knows how this will work…”, but then we did it, we cut the zig-zag fabric and it worked well.

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Was Victor the happiest boy in the world at that time?

JW: Yes, and he’s looking forward to coming to the next workshop tomorrow!

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How are the bases organised? We have understood that all of them have leaders, someone to whom the group can refer. How does this kind of society work, are there some rules?

JW: I think these young people, girls and boys, live like a family. In a family system there’s a leader, like a father or a mother. And the boys follow this person: if the leader tells them to do something, everyone will follow him. For example, children on the streets are often addicted, and sometimes when we talk to them they’re told to put away the drug, everyone does so because they listen to the leader. This is a rule that they follow. Another rule is that they must be there for each other and help each other out: if you have something you have to share it with the others; if one of them is beaten, the others will fight to protect him. This is the most beautiful thing: they live like a family.

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Is the leader the oldest one or are there other criteria?

JW: In most cases leaders are the oldest ones, but another element of leadership is the time they spent in the base. There are people who stay for a week and then leave, some stay for a month, and others stay on the same base for years.

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Do you try to build up a relationship with the leader to gain access to the base?

MO: Yes, the leaders are those who can help you access the base. They’re also the ones who can protect you if something happens.

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What was the biggest challenge you had to face?

MO: When I started off it was a big challenge because I am a woman. Many people on the street are drug users and at first you are a bit afraid of them, but after two or three days they were already very friendly. It is essential to introduce yourself because there are people who approach them, beat them, slap them, even the police. But if they know who you are, you are safe.

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How has the situation changed since you started? Are there fewer children on the street?

MO: Yes, I am talking about this side of the city (Dagoretti, Kawangware, etc.), the number of boys is decreasing. But further into the city centre there are still many of them because when you rescue one, others arrive. Now the government is also beginning to look after their protection. Perhaps in five years’ time we will have fewer children on the streets.

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Your objective is to reunite children with their family, what happens when a child has no family?

MO: Some children don’t have parents. That’s when we rely on relatives. No one is born without a father and a mother, we usually trace the family and even if it is very far away, we reach it.

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During the art workshops we felt welcome, we received respect and affection. What is the perception of other people who don’t live on the street? We know that there’s discrimination against them. Once there was a girl in the neighbourhood who teased them, calling them animals. Do you think the carnival could question this perception?

MO: People consider these guys as thieves. They are afraid they can hurt them. People from the highest social classes in particular judge them because of the way they dress, because they are dirty, and they wonder what they eat. We are waiting for the carnival because at that moment we will be with them and our hope is that people can look at them differently. Many times they have a negative perception of us too: they ask themselves/wonder “How can you do this work?” The Carnival is a way to make the community communicate with the youth.

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We conclude this conversation by recalling a drawing made at Kawangware. It was Mavo’s drawing, in which he designed a beautiful hardware store. On one side there was a landscape, a dawn. Or a sunset perhaps. Next to it he wrote “Land of Horror”. So we asked him the reasons why he wrote that and he replied that they call the police “horror” because sometimes the police arrive and beat them for no reason, as if they had no value. How can the carnival and other initiatives such as International Street Children’s Day help on a political level?

JW: I think that this carnival, this party, in which people will see us all together will raise questions and I think our answer will be to make people understand that these people are important, they are human beings like everyone else and it is only because of some problems that have ended up on the street. I think most people think they have simply run away from home, while there are many factors that push a young person to make this choice. It’s important to try to understand what those reasons are before getting an idea. Even in the case of police officers, the reason they behave in that way is that they think they are thieves and that, in some cases, they can be associated with criminals and other situations that society doesn’t accept.

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Interview by Matteo Rubbi, with the participation of Ibrahim Nehme and Elisa Simoncelli

A matatu can fly, or almost: carefree, skipping traffic, light and levitating, passengers, engine, tires, transmission and muffler included, made of thin fabric and light.
A hardware store can also fly, in the wind and in the sun: plates, shovels, saws, hammers, scales, all with special powers, darting.
Another matatu then, can be long and sinuous like a dragon and meander through the streets, welcoming and dancing on the inside and accessible from any part: every point is good for entering and exiting, each coil good for improvising a song or a dance step.
A house made of plastic and bamboo sits atop a car, roving: irreverent pirate and solid shelter at the same time.
An enchanted forest of very tall trees dripping with noisy leaves: at the top, umbrellas and fantastic inhabitants look down. The world turned upside down in Nairobi that day, April 14, 2018, after two months of workshops in the sun and in the rain: the world of the kids, both girls and boys, living in the streets of Kawangware, Mtindwa and Ngong. Each of these places hosts a base, and each base is a large and complex family in which each person stands up for themselves as well as supports and cares for each other each day. Vulnerable and discriminated against by the richest classes, these families have created a wonderful feast, revealed their universe, and shared it with us; their imagination and their work have given a unique form—unlike anything ever seen—to the Nairobi Carnival, the first ever.
The party reclaimed the streets: that day, the Riruta-Satellite neighborhood really seemed to be everyone’s, and it shone because it had its children and teenagers at its center. The beauty of Nairobi is their beauty.
The video tells the story of Carnival! Nairobi, collecting many different fragments and putting them together. The point of view is that of Derek MF Di Fabio, a visual artist who worked with the boys in the workshops together with Cherimus, the Koinonia educators and the girls and boys of the rescue centers. Derek focuses on the kids who live in the street and on all the collaborations with local artists and artisans who, by joining forces, made the carnival possible.
The beautiful soundtrack of the video was also produced in the bases, through workshops conducted by musician Luca Garino. A group of young musicians from Nairobi (MegaLink Ent Studio) who have also lived in the street in the past, curated the music production. The video also tells of the meeting of Ibrahim Nehme—one of the two artists in residence for Darajart 2018, together with Luca Garino—and Byub, a poet who lives on Kabiria Road. Ibrahim, he tells us, became a poet in Nairobi. In the video, Byub’s words are accompanied by images of a tree fallen during a storm at Kivuli Center, almost a thunderbolt.

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Matteo Rubbi

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Interview with Dexi Tian (English/French)

by Derek MF Di Fabio

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It’s funny how some expressions and sounds stick to our minds. In English there is an expression called Earworm, you use to say when you wake up with a song and it doesn’t go away, so every now and then you’ll find yourself sing to it. It can be contagious, and the people with you may sing that same song without really knowing why. Probably that song will influence your rhythm and your moves during the day. With the classes, we went to look for materials on the beach of Fontanamare and in a park in Domusnovas, we had to translate your way-of-seeking, your searching method, to the children: how would you describe it? How would you describe your gaze?

Selon moi l’art est partout. Ca veut dire qu’il faut aimer le penser et garder la curiosité. Je travaille beaucoup avec les objets trouvés. Ou plutôt ce sont eux qui semblent me trouver, par hasard, lors de mes promenades. C’est grâce à notre société : elle nous propose trop de marchandises,partout, tellement qu’elles finissent par déborder et devenir une partie de la nature. Souvent elles se manifestent sous forme de pollution. Dans cette société de surconsommation certains voudraient régler le problème par de multiples réglementations voir dans certains cas par l’interdiction.Mais je pense que c’est mieux de nous changer nous mêmes, changer notre façon de vivre . A chacun de trouver sa façon de vivre, savoir ce dont on a vraiment besoin, ne pas simplement suivre la mode. Trouver son propre sens dans la vie.

C’est alors que la vie deviendra simple et claire. C’est comme lorsqu’un objet semble m’attendre là, au coin d’une rue.

Je réfléchis beaucoup aux relations entre la vie et l’art. Parfois je me dis qu’ils sont pareils, d’autres fois qu’ils sont différents.  

Le plus intéressant pour moi c’est quand l’art se fond dans la vie, c’est alors que l’art se transcende.En fait toutes les choses ont une utilité, ça dépend seulement du regard qu’on leur porte. Tout comme les individus: chacun est utile dans la société. Il faut juste trouver sa bonne place. Tout est possible, il faut juste agir.  

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It was very interesting to bring your practice to the children of four different schools in Sulcis, what do you remember more from these meetings?

Je trouve que les enfants sont très ouverts, ils ont des pensées incroyables, très différentes les unes des autres. Ils sont très intéressants. Surtout ils peuvent les concrétiser très vite avec tout ce qu’on a trouvé, ca c’est incroyable. J’ai passé beaucoup de temps pour réfléchir pour trouver cette façon de travailler, mais pour eux ça a l’air tellement naturel. Malgré la difficulté de la langue, on a bien travaillé. Et on s’est bien amusés. J’en garde un souvenir souriant.

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Every morning we crossed some mountains to reach the Iglesiente area. Some mornings were super sleepy that we couldn’t speak, other mornings were full of clouds and driving-down the hills was like diving into a foamy dream. Sheeps were crawling particular fields, once we catch three identical shepherd dogs, the water of a spring gets out from a plastic pipe on that route, another time we had to slow down following a nails-slow truck, and once we stopped to check a massive hotel-restaurant that was never finished and it sleeps for the last 30 years. One of those mornings we spoke about materials: your work is based on “sought-for objects”, in which objects you are interested to?

Chacun a ses goûts . Le goût des aliments , des vêtements,la vie quotidienne. Chacun est différent. Tout comme il y a différents types de collectionneurs. Moi par exemple ce que je collectionne ce sont les objets .   j’aime bien les objets en bois , en verre, et des   pierres . J’aime bien leur forme, leur matérialité. Mais aussi dans chaque objets, il y a le temps, le passé et les traces. Avec l’espace ,Ça raconte beaucoup d’histoire. J’adore les mélanger et créer des hybridations pour trouver de nouvelles relations entre eux. C’est ça qui m’amuse bien.

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All your sculptures are composed by usedobjects, objects that humans had touched, scrubbed, eaten, thrown, lost or forgot.I was looking online a sculpture you were telling us about, but I couldn’t found it: some human phalanxes made out in some metal, you had found them in a burnt house therefore those finger partly fused together. Or you produced for us two sculptures, we walked with you to collect some of their elements you had seen before during a walk: some animal-jaws and some ceramic parts were soaked in the dirty water of a little canal, under a bridge, in the periphery of the small village where we are based, Perdaxius. It seems that most of your elements came from a twilight zone, although they had been passed and dance under the spotlights. You came from a big Chinese city, and then you moved to Paris and recently you moved to the woods outside the French capital: what is a periphery and what is its role?

Pourquoi m’intéresser à la banlieue. Car je trouve que les banlieues sont les lignes entre la société et la nature. Sur cette ligne, on voit les relations des hommes avec la nature. Parfois c’est la guerre, parfois il y a une harmonie sensible. Et c’est cela qui a posé beaucoup de questions. La question de pollution bien sur, la question de vivre ensemble, comment améliorer la relation ?Là c’est le   point qui m’intéresse.

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Then these elements are composed: as we were setting up in the school, all the different tools and instruments are tidily ordered and then you operate. “Le cadavre exquis” jumps to my mind but also some notions of Chinese language you presented to the classes: how a number of ideograms next to each other means an object, or how, if repeated together, the same ideogram can shift its meaning and become multitude / an abstract idea…. is it connected to your work or I’m just making it up?

Oui , bien sur. Il y a ce sens, mais pas seulement. L’écriture chinoise est une ancienne culture, qui perdure jusqu’à présent. C’est la plus ancienne écriture qui   est utilisée jusqu’à maintenant. En tout il y a plus de dix mille caractères. C’est une richesse inimaginable. Il est   comme une ligne qui relie le présent et le passé. On peut voir la vie des anciens et leurs évolutions . Et ça va évoluer en continu. Les écritures c’est comme les racines ,ça sort naturellement dans ma pensée et dans mes travaux. Les objets je les vois comme des mots, et les installations comme des poésies, une poésie visuelle en dimension.  

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…and to conclude: can you tell us few things about the association you are part of?

L’association VIA est une association d’ art contemporain qui a été créé par plusieurs artistes et commissaires. L’Idée c’est un chemin pour l’art. Son esprit est dans la pratique. C’est comme s’il n’y avait pas de route au début, ce sont les gens qui marchent dessus, qui, avec le temps, ont créé un chemin. L’art a besoin de curiosité et de  courage.et  les pratiques dans la vie. Parfois , les vies des artistes ne sont pas toujours faciles, surtout à la sortie de l’école. l’esprit de l’association c’était d’aider les jeunes artiste à trouver leurs chemins, pour encourager et avancer . Par exemple trouver des endroits et des opportunités pour exposer , montrer leurs travaux, et parfois organiser des courtes résidences etc …Mais maintenant, la route s’est un peu perdue dans des méandres. Il faut beaucoup de travail, continuer d’avancer, trouver la bonne route.  

Enfin merci à l’association cheremus, qui m’a donné cette chance de travailler avec les enfants. C’est un super projet. J’ai passé des moments inoubliables en Sardaigne. J’espère que l’association va continuer, et grandir. Merci encore, à bientôt.  

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Per il terzo appuntamento con i laboratori dei Giardini Possibili, Cherimus collaborerà con l’artista Dexi Tian, selezionato da Martina Köppel-Yang, co-curatrice della biennale d’arte di Sichuan 2018 (Cina).

L’artista nelle prossime due settimane lavorerà con i bambini delle scuole elementari di Villamassargia, Domusnovas, Musei e Iglesias, affiancato dagli artisti Derek MF Di Fabio e Carlo Spiga.

Il giorno 18 di gennaio è prevista una presentazione del lavoro di Dexi Tian aperta a tutti presso la Casa Occheddu di Domusnovas.

Dexi Tian, nato in Cina nel 1979, vive e lavora a Parigi. Poeta dei materiali, Dexi sviluppa un rigoroso lavoro di ricostruzione della realtà partendo da elementi recuperati. Per lui, gli oggetti sono come parole: riassemblati e installati in nuovi spazi, danno loro un’altra risonanza. .Nel tentativo di conciliare arte e vita, è anche interessato a trovare un posto alla permacultura nella sua arte.
Dexi Tian ha partecipato a numerose mostre e festival in Europa e in Asia: Museum Liu Haisu, Shanghai (CINA), Gallery LIUSA WANG (FR), the 6B, Paris (FR), Gallery PARIS HORIZON, Paris (FR), Abbatiale Saint-Ouen, Rouen (FR), CIGE, Beijing, (CHINA), Kunstverein Nurtingen (DE), La Papeterie de Seine, Parc du chemin de l’Ile, Nanterre (FR), Gallery IEFO, Paris (FR), Gallery AREA, Paris (FR), Gallery Tamtam Art Taipei (TAIWAN), Gallery Espace des Arts Sans Frontières, Paris (FR), gallery International City of Arts, personal exhibition, Paris (FR), Castel Liversan, Haut Médoc, Bordeaux (FR). Dexi Tian lavora anche al di fuori degli spazi istituzionali, con workshop e altre forme ibride.

Amy Sow, visual artist and activist of Nouakchott, has closed the four-workshop series of the project The Possible Gardens.
The story of her commitment to the fight against violence against women, and of the central role that the protection of children through education in art and self-expression plays in her work, was a precious gift for us and for all the children who warmly welcomed her during her two weeks in Sardinia.

For Amy, art is an indispensable tool for the empowerment and emancipation of the individual in the fight against inequality and injustice. Being an artist in Mauritania is very difficult, she told us; being a woman and an artist even more so. Her dream is to give access to arts education for everyone, especially for children and for youth who do not have this possibility. Art Gallé was born this way, from a dream. A home for art built with recycled materials, especially wood, which welcomes everyone, which encourages people to meet, to exchange ideas and experiences. During the first meetings with the children of the Iglesiente, Amy Sow talked about her beautiful dream and all the difficulties encountered along the way, answered their thousand questions, and listened to the dreams of the children for their gardens. She also talked about the early marriages that girls still suffer, how gender discrimination is unfortunately still a relevant issue all over the world, how important it is to struggle, and how art is a tool to convey messages and to imagine and build a different world.

In the second week the children returned to their gardens, and together with Amy they built their dreams with their hands. For a week the spirit of Art Gallé, Amy’s dream, has animated Cherimus and all the children. With Arundo Donax rods and waste materials from the Iglesias ecological platform, tempera paint and brushes, the children have given concrete form to their ideas developed during three months of workshops.

See, here: the “sound wall” of Domusnovas that transforms the class into a great musical instrument made of colorful suspended pipes.
The goals / sculptures of the fantastical playground of Villamassargia are built on a 1: 1 scale, and immediately used to invent new games.
The dream of drawing in one’s own park and organizing an annual exhibition among the trees becomes reality in Musei: each student chooses a companion to portray and to be portrayed by; here is a row of faces, a real gallery of portraits en plein air appear from tree to tree, becoming the heart of a little morning party.
Iglesias’s children give form to an important person, a woman who has struggled to be free to be and to think: a giant Hypatia more than 5 meters tall, stylized like a constellation, miraculously walks through the park of Iglesias and allows us to see over the houses thanks to a camera positioned on her eyes.
For a brief moment the kid’s dreams are realized: the possible gardens have become real, thanks to the children and to Amy Sow of the little real utopias.

Amy Sow

  “Oscillant entre le figuratif et l’abstrait, j’adore les sujets relatifs au vécu de la femme. Je dénonce les violences faites à ces dernières. Ce phénomène est toujours d’actualité, même dans les lieux où les gens sont plus émancipés la femme est toujours violentée. Peindre pour moi est la meilleure façon d’exprimer ma liberté. Une liberté que voudrais vivre pleinement et que je souhaiterais à toutes les femmes qui peuplent ses contrés.”

Amy Sow

“Oscillating between the figurative and the abstract, I love subjects relating to the lived experiences of women; I denounce the violence done to them. This phenomenon is still relevant, even in places where people are more emancipated. Women are always abused.Painting for me is the best way to express my freedom, a freedom that I would like to live fully and that I wish for all the women of the world.”

Amy Sow

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In 2017, she built and opened Art Gallé, a space made entirely of wood dedicated to the promotion of art and artists from all over Mauritania. The aim of the project is to offer a space where all can express themselves through art, learn, exchange ideas, and grow. Art Gallé is a space for youth arts education in a context in which such spaces are often lacking. In the pular language, its name means “come home.”

Sow’s work, which is mainly pictorial, is addressed above all to the most marginalized and helpless women: victims of violence. Her work speaks directly to these women and aims to sensitize society and institutions that do not yet fight episodes of violence and discrimination toward the weakest.

In 2019, the Arts et Culture section of New African Magazine declared Sow one of the 100 personalities of the year in the entire continent of Africa. To learn more, click here.

ph. Marco Colombaioni

We were in Nairobi, at night time always in Riruta Satellite, at daytime often in Kibera, in Ndugu Mdogo. Cherimus was hosted by the NGO Amani, who works with street children, while running different rescue centres. We were there thanks to Marco Colombaioni’s visionary  idea. He came here several times as a volunteer and wrote a project for an international program of art residences based in these centres, Darajart. In the Swahili language, Daraja means ‘bridge’. He wanted to build a bridge for unlikely encounters between the art world and the pulsating life of Kibera in Nairobi, by inviting every year artists working with different media (music, writing, cinema and visual arts) to live and work in the largest slum of Sub-Saharan Africa.

We decided to put together the first Darajart pilot edition. This zero edition was meant to help us come into contact with the context and understand it better. We had just started to work there and we already had three projects.

The first one was a wall painting made on the facade of the centre. All the children hosted in Ndugu Mdogo contributed to its realisation. During a three-day workshop we asked them to draw their favourite objects on the wall and then to paint them. The wall got populated by an incredible number of fantasy inventions, which all together composed a puzzle of enormous animals, absurd signals and tiny unusual tangled characters, often overlapping with each other. You need to take your time to discover all the details hidden in this painting. The children realised their wall together with the artists: they had only left the street one month earlier, and now Ndugu Mdogo was their home, and the community their family. It was essential that they felt as the owner of their space. Above all, the wall is beautiful!

The second project we did with the children in Ndugu Mdogo was a sort of big Chinese dragon, made of 27 roundish metal panels (two of which were bigger than the others and represented the head). During a workshop, we asked the children to think about their dreams, about how they imagine themselves in the future. Each of them drew and painted their dreams on the metal panels. Then we went with the children to the famous train-rails of Kibera, where you can enjoy a unique perspective on the slum. There they set up the panels and held them up,showing their dreams to the slum. Once we were back in Ndugu Mdogo, we tied up all the boards together, hanging them from the facade that they had painted. When the children will leave Ndugu Mdogo, this Dragon will follow them to Kivuli, another center run by Amani.

The third project was Santu Jacu, a wooden sculpture of St James, the patron saint of Perdaxius, realized in collaboration with the Kenyan wood carver Charles Nshimiyimana.

Darajart Artist in residence

Curated by Cherimus, in collaboration with AMANI NGO

Darajart is a residence for internationally-renowned artists, curators and writers, which takes place in the heart of Nairobi’s slums.

The aim of residency is to explore the ‘peripheral’ context of the slums; to enter ‘on tiptoe’ into the daily life of the people who live there; to observe and seize those inputs that could be appropriated by artistic and curatorial research.

Darajart is a site of artistic research and encounters where new projects and ideas can be realized and experimented. It is organized with the collaboration of FARE and its international network of residences (‘artinreisdence.it’) and it is curated by Cherimus.

The project is born from a visionary idea by Marco Colambaioni, co-funder of Cherimus. After working in Africa as a volunteer for Amani, Marco’s artistic production was profoundly influenced by the energy of this continent.

In the Kiswaili language, Daraja means ‘bridge’: a bridge for a possible encounter between the art world and the pulsating life of Kibera in Nairobi, Kenia.

He was planning to invite artists working with different media (music, writing, cinema and visual arts) to live and work in the largest slum of Sub-Saharan Africa, as art was the ‘key’ he used to build bridges. This key allowed him to imagine a dialogue that would go beyond mutual knowledge and sharing and that would transform these values into a vision – an image capable to add an unforeseen, new voice to an ongoing dialogue; something that would grow wildly, propagate and seek to unite and multiply. In this respect, Darajart does not have the characteristics peculiar to most art residencies, but looks more like an unexpected encounter.

Darajart has a yearly programme articulated in two or three residencies.

Two artists – one of which is Kenyan or African – take part in the project and live in one of Amani’s centres for two periods of up to three months each in the space of one year. During their stay, they experiment and explore the work of Amani and the characteristics of the local territory, possibly with the collaboration of other cultural centres in Nairobi.

Niniendi su pippieddu cun sant’Anna e santu Iacu

Il presepe di Perdaxius torna alla chiesa medievale di san Giacomo, grazie alla collaborazione tra artisti, musicisti e scuola del paese.

Perdaxius, 22 dicembre 2009

L’associazione Cherimus e il gruppo folk Maria Munserrara di Tratalias, realizzano il presepe di Natale nella chiesa romanico-pisana di San Giacomo, antica chiesetta nel centro storico del comune di Perdaxius (CI), che per varie vicissitudini è rimasta chiusa e inutilizzata per anni.

L’associazione Cherimus ha invitato per l’occasione alcuni artisti a lavorare insieme ai bambini della scuola primaria, per realizzare i personaggi, gli elementi e gli scenari classici del presepe, con materiali di recupero procurati dagli stessi bambini.
Gli artisti, attivi in ambito internazionale, sono entrati a contatto con la comunità locale in un momento importante nella vita del paese, cioè i preparativi per i festeggiamenti del Natale.
Per instaurare un rapporto reale tra gli artisti e il paese, l’associazione Cherimus ha chiesto la collaborazione di istituzioni, associazioni e attività del territorio, tra cui la scuola primaria e diversi esercizi artigianali e commerciali. Gli artisti hanno così costruito il presepe grazie al contributo dei bambini della scuola primaria nel corso di due settimane di laboratori. Gli animali, i personaggi, il cielo e le stelle sono stati immaginati e costruiti da zero nella scuola. Gli interventi degli artisti, realizzati in un’atmosfera corale, spaziano dal cielo stellato, che riproduce le costellazioni presenti la notte di Natale dell’anno zero nel cielo di Perdaxius, alla realizzazione di un cielo composto da un puzzle di carta di 12 metri quadri, colorato con pastelli e pennarelli, dall’arrivo della stella cometa, che sarà interpretato dai bambini in una performance prevista al momento dell’apertura, alla realizzazione delle orecchie dei personaggi fatte di dolce.
spy cell phoneIl gruppo folk Maria Munserrara di Tratalias allieterà l’apertura del presepe con un repertorio di canti sacri tipici della musica tradizionale sarda.
Nella ex biblioteca del paese, situata nella piazza principale saranno esposti i disegni realizzati dai bambini durante i laboratori e verranno offerti dolci tipici preparati da alcune signore del paese.

Il progetto è parte di un percorso più ampio promosso dall’associazione Cherimus che mira ad integrare l’arte contemporanea internazionale con le principali occasioni di festa del paese al fine di valorizzare la cultura locale.
L’associazione Cherimus, attiva da diversi anni, ha al suo attivo numerose iniziative di livello internazionale realizzate con l’obiettivo di integrare territorio e arte contemporanea nel Sulcis-Iglesiente.

L’evento è realizzato con il contributo del comune di Perdaxius.
Info:cherimus@gmail.com