What do we need art for?

I’ll try to answer this question from a very personal point of view. I need art because it makes me feel like a different person, a different individual. It gives me the possibility to “test” different ways of being. It allows me to access different potentialities. I am very curious to find out how other people live, how it is to be “other people”. Art is (strangely) able to open up a window on this.

About my experience/contribution within the frame of Historia-Hysteria project

I always admired museum curators for their ability to access complex research material and come up with helpful answers to our questions. I remember the time I visited Galleria dell’Accademia in Florence where I saw a painting depicting a monk in the act of writing on a parchment. It was not hard for me to understand that the object he was holding in his right hand was a quill, but I could not make much of the instrument he was holding in his left hand, something that looked like a scalpel. So I asked one of the specialists in the museum about it. She was happy to give me the answer: the mysterious instrument was used to scrape off mistakes from parchments and was indispensable to any scribe working in those days. I admired the level of detail into which curators can go and also their dedication and availability. I had the same pleasant experience with the museum curators from MNIT, with whom I collaborated in the frame of Historia-Hysteria art residency. With my interest being the Latin writing, they were very helpful and systematic with the information I needed in order to create a Roman inspired digital font. I had a meaningful, prompt exchange and guidance and I was honoured to be able to browse through specific studies and inventory images that undoubtedly took effort in being compiled. I hope that, by the fact that this residency was entirely carried online, it will be an encouragement for the MNIT to put more material online and engage with the public through this medium. As for me, I was glad to access a more scientific field and to try other mediums than usual, such as calligraphy.

Where I am (situated) right now (it could be artistically, geographically or both)

Geographically, I am in my home in Berlin. Artistically, I find myself at the crossing into a more literature-related creativity: this year I published two books(The man with a hole in his tie- a collection of visual notes/ drawings on Berlin and the graphic novel The Fact Finder). With the latter I will take part in my first sequential art-themed festival (BilBOlbul, Bologna) where I’m invited with my first authors-panel discussion. I am proud to represent and discover both worlds of visual arts and comics/literature.