Celebrare il solstizio tra alberi, ritratti di voci e installazioni virtuali. Una novità dalla fucina creativa di Giovanna Iorio

Ho appena visitato in anteprima una mostra virtuale che accompagna un’installazione reale molto particolare: si tratta dei ritratti delle voci, che realizza Giovanna Iorio nell’ambito del suo ampio e articolato progetto Poetry sound library che raccoglie migliaia di voci di poeti da tutto il mondo, stampati su voile e disposti tra i rami, assieme a dispositivi di riproduzione vocale, nell’antico bosco di Panshanger nel Hertfordshire UK. L’installazione artistica vuole celebrare il solstizio d’inverno di questo difficile anno 2020 portando la poesia a contatto con la natura, in dialogo con gli alberi. Poiché per i noti motivi di emergenza sanitaria non sarà possibile visitare la mostra dal vivo, Giovanna Iorio ha predisposto una pagina web che simula una sala espositiva dove si possono vedere le immagini e sentire le voci. Il tutto molto suggestivo. La mostra DIALOGUE aprirà il 21 Dicembre 2020 e terminerà i 30 Gennaio 2021.

I poeti coinvolti nell’iniziativa sono 23: François Nédel Atèrre, Gili Haimovich, Maria Pia Quintavalla, Marilyne Bertoncini, Matilde Tortora, Michela Zanarella, Nina Kossman, Sandra Giuliani, Sara Capoccioni, Marino Santalucia, Davide Cortese, Angela Schiavone, Anna Maria Giannini, Anna Maria Pugliese, Beppe Sebaste, Brigitte Maillard, Ester Isaja, Eugenia Serafini, Michael Rothenberg, Rossella Tempesta, Viviane Ciampi, Maria Pia Dall’Omo, Silvia Stucky.
Video e musica sono di Lucio Lazzaruolo.
Il testo introduttivo che segue è di Martina Pfeiler:

“Exhibition of Voice Portraits in the Woods by poet Giovanna Iorio poetically and visually reimagines an ecological equilibrium, evoking, if not reawakening, a long forgotten sense of a human mysticism. Performatively integrated into the woods of Hertfordshire, the highly immersive outdoor exhibition coincides with a remarkable astronomical event: Winter Solstice!
On the 21st of December, all animals, plants, and human beings in the Northern Hemisphere experience a gravitational tipping point that is weaving organisms into long hours of darkness, before only gradually moving closer to the sun again. As the artwork suggests, however, this shared feeling of a dark transitional moment has the potential to cyclically ignite a human sense of ecological belonging, giving life to ancient rituals, by entering into a poetic dialogue with nature.
The eco-poetical exhibition features Voice Portraits created by Giovanna Iorio as artful spectrograms, transcoding the acoustic frequencies of recorded poems by twenty-three internationally acclaimed poets from Italy, France, Russia, USA and Israel.
Although high-end 21st century technologies and software programs often take a nod towards a progressive but unsustainable future, the innovative on-location artwork energetically revives an intimate feeling of an ancient past.
It allows visitors to become part of a spectacular natural ritual with every footstep: animated in their most dramatic forms by the forces of nature, Oaks, Ashes, and Chestnuts step forth to welcome the voice portraits nestled between trees, displaying a seemingly infinite tonal poetic landscape.
Together, nature, poets, and visitors playfully interact with these mesmerising color schemes and mystically dance with their fantastic forms.
During this short period around winter solstice, everything is possible and the voices of today’s poets mingle with an ancient past!
If trees can talk, so can images.
If human life is woven into a colorful tapestry of reflective atoms and flamboyant cells, then Giovanna Iorio’s twenty-three Voice Portraits candidly bring color into an ecologically threatened environment that asks for nothing more but to be heard and seen.
It is winter solstice in the year 2020, and this enthralling exhibition is asking us to enter into more intimate dialogue with nature than ever before.”