Why a Museum? - Lino Alviani, Curator

The idea to develop a public art project has been brewing in Scontrone for years demonstrated by public efforts to turn this hidden, medieval town into the most sought after treasure by tourists. I began working in Scontrone in 1988 when the town mayor, Claudio Matta, began a series of cultural activities such as public murals, paintings, sculptures, and various art competitions transforming this charming village into a “Paese per Museo” – a town that is a museum in itself. It was with the completion of these public art projects that brought me to the idea to develop a center dedicated to the production and promotion of cultural art projects, research, and organization of cultural events.

Our intent is to utilize the historical and artistic aspects of Scontrone and integrate them with the present. What better way to begin an enduring dialogue within the village than with the creation of at museum of contemporary art that is dedicated to the artistic expressions of women, to which we give the name: Museo Internazionale della Donna nell’Arte (MIDA) – International Museum of Women in Art.

The village, the women, and their art form a special relationship between the past and the contemporary bringing us into intimate contact with our everyday lives and our roots on a profound level. The museum is a cherished entity that is maintained and utilized for the growth Scontrone so that all may partake in its wealth of imagery and imagination.

The choice to dedicate the museum to female artists wasn't by chance, but rather due to the fact that being a woman, which can be certainly a trying position in life and in the world of art, brings us to conclude that they unquestionably know how to draw inspiration from the search of autonomy and a desire to exist. They have succeeded to express the pulses, feelings, and images of the world seen from a difficult perspective. Women have worked and are working on different forms of identity and on the relational and social fabric that builds them. From projecting on stage autographical experiences pure and simple, almost literal, to elaborate stretches of the imagination MIDA contains all facets of art.

The village, the women, and their art together form a cooperative means to construct this museum as an anomalous route outside of every immediate suggestion of past art and straight towards the identifying places of the soul. MIDA is a place to offer critical reflection on the pragmatisms of every day life while supplying a literary key to the present. It is a challenging task to amass a collection with a grand visual itinerary, and still individualistically elaborate with respect to the different forms of expression. In this case, nevertheless, we choose to be intuitive and literary, more than analytical and historical. We take into consideration also that it is impossible to subject oneself to any cultural identity without falling into global or domestic conformities but use this in a slow effort to shorten the distances between different cultures and identities.

Let us not separate form from content, but rather, emphasize the quality of the creative process that permits us to reconfirm the dialogue of reality. MIDA proposes works that present themselves as extensions of being, with impact, and exhibit natural references to a life that is a carrier of hope with a yearning to maintain vitality and significance. MIDA’s exhibitions strive to define themselves on cultural nomadism that is characterized by a quest - an experience of geographical movement and free creative exploration.

Within the scope of this project we would like to obtain a direct meeting between the inhabitants of Scontrone and the artists so that they may use their experiences in Scontrone to inspire their works. We would like to offer the opportunity to create themes, explorations and personal works that continually transcend the limits of style, form, creative expression and propose elements of discontinuity. As a result, a comparison and cultural integration is made between styles and forms, with respect to the traditions and cultural characteristics of the region. Scontrone is a place of and for art, dedicated to the experimentation of artistic languages from expositions like Rose’s Choice, to work in progress, to sculptural installations, to workshops, to didactic directions.

We would like to reconsider the artwork in terms of a process and change the function of the museum from a conservative space to that of creative freedom, thus redefining information. MIDA as a public institution will grow as a structure always more apt to meet the esthetic, cultural, and didactic needs of the individuals of the community. Scontrone is a place to find oneself, learn, study, and communicate. We aim to knock down the conventional walls of museums as exhibits of only the past, personalisms, and deprived icons and grow MIDA into an intercultural center that encompasses many different forms of expression.

It is an arduous challenge to initiate a program that involves a wide audience without turning culture into a generic consumer mass while offering points of reflection couple with personal memories. It is an even more ambitious task to make a place where the contents and their container preserve a dialogue that disperses a particular cultural message. I believe that an exhibition does not need critics neither interpreters, but only people that know how to choose significant works and explore them profoundly.



Lino Alviani, curatore
Scontrone, 2002
Via Giardini del Rio, 12 – 67031 Castel di Sangro

Thoughts on MIDA - Patrizia Melone, Mayor of Scontrone

When together with my friend Lino Alviani, we started thinking about the possibility of founding an International Museum of Women in Art in Scontrone I liked the idea very much, although I wondered why artists from different parts of the world would not only decide to come to Scontrone, a small village in the heartland of Abruzzi, but even donate one of their works to us.

The response to our invitations was overwhelming and in 2002 we were happily able to bring together 23 artists from different countries. We have thus been able acquire artworks, which will be the core of the collection to be exhibited in our in our museum. This is a unique project that aims at being a homage to women. The Museo Internazionale della Donna nell'Arte (International Museum of Women in Art), MIDA for short, is set in the Meeting Room of Scontrone City Hall.

I would like to take a moment to expand on women and art. Art is actually something that comes from within and expresses the personality and the deepest feelings of every artist. All those who devote their lives to communicating through the different forms of art have such a strong emotional drive. The truth of this statement is demonstrated by the fact that often they are ready to accept any means offered to them to express and communicate their works. Our project gives them exactly this opportunity - to exchange their experiences, knowledge, and ideologies with others from around the world. In essence, they are given the chance to work and live in Scontrone, to get to know our lives, our people, our food, our culture and traditions and they will give us the possibility to discover their different "worlds", languages, cultures, and so on.

Women have sensitivity, a way to communicate and express themselves and cope with the facts of life in an extremely "sophisticated" manner and more importantly in an unselfish way. That is why they raise the interest of others and share their feelings. The culture of matriarchy has very deep roots in this part of the world mainly because we have experienced an absence of men due our country's strong history of wars and secondly because of emigration. Therefore, women had to make decisions of the utmost importance and have raised their children, provided food and education for them and solved very difficult problems with courage and a firm hand.

Providing these women with "a room of their own" seems to be even more important now. Especially when we thought we had reached a high level of independence came the events of September 11th that have made us realize in some countries of the world women still live in horrible conditions. These are conditions we tend to ignore rather than feeling obliged to fight against as we would fight against any other injustice jeopardizing human rights.

Rose's Choice is the title of the exhibition of last year and also this year, which will form the core of our museum. It deliberately refers to the color which makes us immediately think about women and to the rose whose petals, different from each other, closely and harmoniously to join and form the queen of flowers: eclectic and firm, thorny, colorful, giving out a wonderful smell, pricking, enchanting, the symbol of love.

"Choice" refers to the opportunity we wish to offer women. I'm sure that through Rose's Choice we have given women one more possibility to be the creators rather than the object of art.I thank the artists that have honored us with their presence and their works. I hope they have enjoyed their stay here and return home having had an enriched experience and with fond memories of Scontrone and its community.

I along with the members of the City Council share in the conviction that our project is a major contribution to the cultural advancement that our town and the whole region of Alto Sangro Valley deserve. It gives us one more opportunity to develop our potential and propel the name of Scontrone to the farthest corners of the world. We are thus very proud of our choice. We will go on with our project in the years to come, to profit once more from the opportunity to get to know different people and different artists and increase our museum's permanent collection with dynamic and new works of art.

- Patrizia Melone Mayor
 
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