The environmental squares are far away. The placards and slogans to save the planet did not contaminate Matera 2019 which, in its own way, launched strong messages of sustainability and peace to the world. Now approaching its conclusion, the event has included a walk through urban art in the programme. Environment, culture, decorations in the places of the cities of Basilicata, an international showcase for an entire year. In recent times various artistic interventions have been carried out in the Region and grown with Matera European Capital of Culture. The artistic residencies, the community projects and that of Capital for a day have attracted artists and performers from all over the world. By working and creating, they have sent messages to politics, to those who govern, to a ruling class far from the honest, eco-sustainable aspirations of citizens.
Artists and intellectuals have been welcomed as messengers of a new way of spreading creativity and awareness, while everything around is in decline. Let's face it: the year of the Capital of Culture was the year in which awareness for the ills of the planet exploded. Matera - despite having prepared the calendar, the exhibitions, the debates for some time - has been able to grasp an extraordinary environmentalist awakening. Starting from young people, the worldwide movement has brought together fathers and sons under the same banner. But Matera didn't get upset. You put organization, ambitions, cultural tendencies to good use. For what they have done and left behind, the participating artists are today the enduring face of an experience that will never be forgotten. For this reason, the first assessments of a wonderful year started by the President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella are also starting to be made.
That art and inspiration are contaminated by the impulses of peoples is a historical truth. When we came here a year ago, it wasn't obvious that the contamination - in a nutshell - would fully manifest itself. A bet and a hope under the eyes of the world. Lucan impulses concerned above all the urban and landscape aspects, rich in history but desertified by migrations, abandonments, social lesions. Instead Matera has acquired a new identity thanks to the work of characters such as Momo, Jorit, Mister Thoms, Giorgio Bartocci. They have painted, but their art has mixed with the joys and bitternesses of the inhabitants of the neighborhoods. A new and unknown light expanded on robust, proud and supportive roots, mortified by the ancient hateful supremacy of classes never satisfied by power. The Matera 2019 foundation together with the Momart Gallery has well created a map of these places. It has traced them on a map, marked as an itinerary of memory. Authentic urban art projects also outside Matera, to capture visitors (perhaps above all) when the curtain falls on Matera 2019. A heavy and valuable legacy for those who will have to behave as if 2019 had never ended. Knowing how to take advantage of every opportunity to bring the best energies back to this deep South to help it recover. The spaces are there, they have been created.
At John Paul II Park, Giorgio Bartocci has redeveloped the steps of the skating rink. In the Agna district there are the works of Salvo Ligama and the young Lucan artists Luca Bia and Francesco Tonno Cortese. The work of Jorit Agoch, promoted by the Carlo Levi Center, remains on the school building. Further on is Piazza degli Olmi, redeveloped in a participatory form by Mister Thoms and Nico Skolp. Seductive places and corners, today certainly more enjoyable due to the confluence in a single project of an idea of the future where art, men and the landscape have found each other without contrasts. The rest is all to be experienced.
