The power of two Town Ambassadors who love their village is incredible and the case of Rocca Santo Stefano is just the tip of an iceberg full of enthusiasm and creativity.
Oriana Impei and Matthias Omahen were awarded a year ago as Town Ambassadors by the mayor Sandro Runieri and his council of Rocca Santo Stefano, a charming village in the center of the lush Aniene Valley. And they already had in mind what they could do for their town: an artists' residence.
Professor Oriana Impei teaches sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome and has always created links between young talents and the Lazio region, but with Rocca Santo Stefano she has done even more. She had a portion of a house in the historic center and bought all the missing rooms from the various cousins.
Now, she and Matthias are renovating the house (which they will inaugurate on May 8th) and in the meantime they have started cultural exchanges thanks to the AAIE art gallery in Rome founded by Yongxu Wang with other international artists.
The thing that struck me in the heart was that a few hours later both the mayor Sandro and Oriana proudly informed me of the inauguration of the exhibition that had also been realized thanks to the extra enthusiasm given by the Town Ambassador Award.
I couldn't miss it and I left home already with a bit of emotion in my heart.
The room was packed with people, citizens who in the previous days had come into contact with the Chinese artists and who had welcomed them like a family: from the baker to the grocery store, from the pensioner to the curious ladies who felt like protagonists of a cultural adventure.
The first three artists who settled for a month in Rocca Santo Stefano living the life of the village and becoming 'temporary citizens' were the Chinese artists Zhang Yan, Chen Leru and Li Xu. The works of the first two artists were exhibited in this exhibition called Rocc’arte, while Li Xu’s works will be exhibited at Nuvola di Fuksas in Rome from November 20th and Chen Leru’s illustrated diary will be published at the end of the entire stay.
Oriana’s speech was exciting: “I am thrilled by the idea of seeing a village reborn thanks to art and with the Australian Town Ambassadors of Anticoli Corrado we are doing a joint project. Our desire is to introduce the real Italy to many young artists, as was done in the 19th century with the Grand Tour.
Furthermore, since we have been renovating the house by introducing mosaics and other artistic elements, other people have bought houses near ours with the idea of arranging them in an artistic way. We are happy to have given a signal that others have taken with love”.
The mayor Sandro Runieri told all the citizens about the importance of the Town Ambassador Award: “We jumped at Claudia Bettiol’s proposal because the award creates a deeper connection with Oriana and Matthias to tie us all to the revitalization of our village that can only happen with young people and art”.
The first edition of the Artist Residencies with Chinese artists is truly a start with a bang! Wang’s presence is a blessing. Wang had been a student at the Academy of Rome and had fallen in love with Italy so much that he stayed in Rome, opened the AAIE art gallery and created connections between our two countries (and not only). His Italian is perfect and his sensitivity brings us back to the ancient Italian and Chinese cultures.
“The positive vibrations that the artists from the town of Rocca Santo Stefano have received make me think that this is only the first step of a long journey”.
And there will be surprises, but I’ll tell you about them next week!
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