Macao - Stress the Power

Last Thrusday and Friday I went to Macao (Milan) for the late-afternoon public assembly.

"Macao Square - Spontaneous Movement"

Macao (M^C^O) is a movement, a group, an happening, a long-lasting political performance, a …. - I don't know how to define it – born out of about one year of meetings of some Milan-based art workers around cultural politics in Milan (and in Italy).

Galfa Tower, Milan

On 5^th May the core group of Macao “occupied” the Galfa Tower, a skyscraper in the central zone of Milan. This action is linked to the occupation of abandoned and unused cultural spaces in Rome, Naples, Palermo and Venice. On 9th May, at dawn, after only 3 days, police expelled the occupants from the Galfa Tower. Without any sort of violence or aggression, people kindly moved out right outside in the street below and settled there. The traffic had to be stopped – and Lord knows how hysterical the Milanese becomes at even the tiniest distress in the traffic!

Soon a lot of people gathered actively to support Macao and take part to it, especially when public assemblies take place, assemblies where decisions are made together.

If in the other Italian cities the movements occupied public spaces with an overt vocation to culture, the case of Milan is different. In theory the Galfa Tower is not a public space, since it is property of Mr.Ligresti. But Mr. Ligresti, who was condemned for crimes of bribe, is a shady figure that is working a lot for Milan and the Region Lombardia (Milan is its capital), gaining a lot of money with his construction enterprise (not to mention the rest of his businesses). Saying that Mr Ligresti's connection to politics is suspicious is an understatement.

A moment of the public assembly

The Galfa Tower has been left unused for 15 years now.

I heard somebody saying that the bills of the building (and that is why it is still have electricity in it) are still on the charge of the Region Lombardia, which is a Public Agent, that is: it is charging on the citizens who cannot use it, since it is of private property.

In the same condition you can find plenty of buildings of huge dimensions here and there in Milan.

Yesterday, 19th May, Macao moved from the Galfa Tower to Palazzo Citterio, another symbolic spot of the cultural politics of Milan.

People moving from the Galfa Tower to Palazzo Citterio

Macao is not defining these acts as occupation. Macao is freeing spaces that should by public.

Macao is stressing the Power. 

(Macao taking the Subway on the way to Palazzo Citterio)

The Major Pisapia offered Macao to move to the ex-factory Ansaldo by submitting their application to the call for assignment, just like any other cultural association, institution, entity. But Macao is not an association or anything of the kind, nor it wants to become one, and MACAO is not looking for A place. 

Arrival at Palazzo Citterio

Macao is a new way of questioning the Power, an artistic activity to stress the system and modify its rules through an artistic act.

For what I seem to understand – since the over-exposition to media is been confusing concepts and has been vomiting an uncontrollable production material about it – Macao is asking to turn spaces like the Galfa Tower into Public Goods to be on assignment to Culture, if they have been left unused for over 5 years. If this happened, Milan would turn into the most interesting city in the world.

The whole happening of Macao raises political and cultural issues stimulating the debate and asking for participation which is opened to everyone's interventions. Decisions are took altogether. 

I don't mean everything is doing fine. The whole process is facing constant difficulties and negotiation. Enthusistic adherence is counterparted by rough criticisms, especially because of the "occupation" which is quick judged as an illigal act, and difficulty of even conceiving the possibility of having an horizontal and democratic decision-making not aiming to individualistic interests.

Still, a new wind is blowing. Macao is doing something, first of all. Macao is stimulating the debate about what is the border between Private and Public in a country where the Public does mainly Private intereste. MACAO is issuing the role of Art and Culture, their relationship to community, territory and institutions.

I keep my finger crossed for it to keep on this way and free more spaces. 

God knows how Milan (and Italy) needs the whole system of politics to come off its hinges.

THE ONLY WAY TO CHANGE THINGS IS TO ACT.

For those in Italy: JOIN MACAO in any way you can! 

For all the others: PLEASE, SPREAD THE WORD!

"Macao frees

Macao imagines

Macao lives

Macao is at 12, Brera Street (Subway MM2)" - Saturday, 19th May

http://www.macao.mi.it/

https://www.facebook.com/macaopagina 

Pics are taken from Macao's Facebook Page

Fusion (Art) Temperature

Toronto, Canada. The capital of fusion.
Just check out the city's food offer. Funky clothes, cool people, mixed ethnies.

A skyline dominated by the CN Tower - the tallest building in the world until 2010.

Canadian immigration policies are quite flexible, so there is a big immigration flux from all over the world . Most of the immigrants come to live in the Great Toronto Area, a big urban stretch around Toronto, an expanse of multiple centres whose borders melted together.

Toronto itself is a patchwork of ethnic blocks. I'm in Little Portugal which isn't far from Little Italy that then eventually turns into China Town (one of the two China Towns). But you can find Little Greece, Korea Town and - I've been told - a once Little Vietnam.

These areas are no ghettos. People mix naturally and hybridity seems just at its starting point: the beginning of an effective meltin'-pot.

What is the art world in Toronto? Is it a fusion of multiple disciplines?

This what I'm trying to figure out by visiting museum, seeing shows, getting in contact with local artists (theatre actors and directors, dancers, choreographers, musicians, writers, academics, etc.). I've been meeting a lot of interesting people, I've seen a couple of shows (not as much as interesting, though) but I couldn't afford more (above all with no guarantee of worthiness) for a cheap ticket is at least 20/25 dollars. I have also been visiting museum of Canadian art, taking advantage of free entrances times, for -again- the tickets could be around 25 dollars (tax excluded!)

The artists receive some help for the state though, like there is a program that helps artists to buy their house. The economical situation in a time of global crisis is not as bad as in the USA or in most of Europe.

But still, one thing is for sure: culture is very expensive and not affordable by all the people.

So, what is the place of the Art in society? What's its social weight? What's its social usefulness if it can't reach everybody? Could the institutionalized art be political and/or social if not everybody can get in touch with it? Does Canadian art really correspond to Canadian fusion identity?

The Canadian duo Carol Condé and Karl Beveridge tried to raise a similar issue.

Carol Condé and Karl Beveridge - Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, 1976

Check the documentary film shown on the Festival Planet in focus:

http://planetinfocus.org/festival-films/portrait-of-resistancethe-art-activism-of-carole-condzand-karl-beveridge/

What's your art temperature? What is the art temperature of the city you're living in? What's the artistic fever that's infecting the country you're in this moment?

What are local issues, questions, wonderings, stylistic concerns that surround you? What artscape are you living in?

So many things, so little time

Just August in London (apart from a week in Scotland/Wales) is a little time for too many things.

For the whole month I kept dreaming way too much for my poor body to rest. I woke up sored by the violent intensity of my dreams: all the people and places of my (short) life mashed up in my mind's intense night life. Dreaming is necessary to digest reality but what if you've been overfed?

London's over stimulation took a bow in Orpheus' land for letting her the doors open.

According to the English language I've been taught at school, "city" is no person, thus the correct pronoun to use to address to London would be the neuter "it". But all the cities are women: their complication; their varieties but little conforming; their big hug - cuddling, welcoming, loose, unmindful, incumbent, suffocating, overwhelming. Villages are men: difficult to reach, simple to get to know, though still keeping secret corners and likely surprising outdoor routes.

London is a woman. It is one of those women whose personality you could get to know just little by little, partially mysterious but not hidden. There is always something new to discover about her, and even those part of her you think you know, well, they're ever changing and much more complex than it might look. She'll let you know her but she knows you won't be really able to catch up, even with a big effort. She is there anyway, blooming with restless activity; all over, whether you're curious or not.

"Lisboa é sò cantinhos"- Lisbon is but little corners. Lisbon is shy, she hides her treasures. She'll let you in but it's not for the masses. Milan is grey, many people don't like her. Once an old friend of mine said: "liking Milan is like falling in love for an ugly woman. Rome, instead, is a whore: she spreads her legs and hides nothing. She's wide open." Quite a definition.

A few days ago Wales-based playwright/dramaturg and friend Kaite O'Reilly said to me "I've always found it hard to work and think in London because it's so over stimulating". I couldn't agree more. In order to properly work, therefore think, London is spurring one's senses way too much and in too many directions. Especially if you know your time there is limited. It is not only fast but also and foremost hyper-offering. My existential issue - that could be summon up in the question "What to choose?" - got exasperated in London. And sometimes you feel like 80% of your energy is spent on keeping away from distractions and being focused on what you have or want to do, cos it's so easy to be blown away by randomly-encountered events or propositions.

Even in such conditions, I got to work on my projects and almost completed all the goals I had set.

I got to read at least one play a week: one about London (Pornography by Simon Stephens), then classical Greek tragedy, in preparation to September in Epidauros.

Aeschylus' Agamemnon: Clytemnestra's revenge over her husband who killed his and her own daughter. Euripides' Andromache: Hermione's jealousy causes her own despair. Aeschylus' Persians: a great army facing the worst defeats. And now Euripides' Orestes.

All the misery of mankind in a few pages. And these feminine figures...they're mesmerizing like a city map. Complicated, undismayed, unabashed, unreachable, quick-tempered, trigger-happy, fierce and brave...and desperate.

Wonder what city I am.