Interview with Anna Cirignola
justpugliafactory: Tell us about your story
Anna: My story is about a woman who lives in the south and tries to redeem herself (as a daughter, as a woman, as a mother, as a wife) from an immature and ignorant social context where women do not have the right to speak... It is the story of a woman who wins thanks to the love for life, freedom and beauty.
One would need a narrative pen to describe the frustrations and bitterness one suffers to free oneself from the ancient mentalities of the South and where being born a female was just a burden, "an out-of-date bill of exchange" as my father used to say.
So I subtract my story from the worst and I tell it since my eyes open to see that life is not that fist of the earth that holds you prisoner, it is not the that, accomplice your mother, wants you to get married at seventeen years old... No! Life is also something you can imagine, where space expands and the presence of your life becomes reality dissociated by you.
I loved to read, in a family where my parents could neither read nor write, nor wanted to send me to school... I was a girl and I had to get married as soon as possible.
And I wrote, I left my thoughts on paper, the pen was the antenna to the sky, my consolation, I wrote down everything I saw and then reread myself, they were my books, since I didn't have one. Sometimes I still reread them today...
justpugliafactory: What is the Casa degli Artisti?
Anna: I`ve always been attracted by knowledge and art, it appears as it was part of my zodiac sign. So as soon as I could, my house became the place where artists stopped and confronted each other. Their language intrigued me, I felt its social and human value, in the meantime my life went on between conflicts and disagreements, my children blocked my path, alone and without anyone's consent, I felt like a warrior, I wanted to defend my conquests. The center of my life was in art and creativity.
Of course, my eyes were on art beyond the border, not only from the South but also from Italy, to making different realities and cultures meet fascinated me. So my first exhibition back in 1988 had an incomprehensible title "The Sixth Sense of Nature"... I invited the artists of the Fluxus movement, Cibulca, Hendricks, Coco Gordon, Takako Saito, Philip Corner who were guests in my house while preparing the performances.
Art has always anticipated the times, in fact this is what I write in the catalogue: "art is an example of how man cannot create anything that he doesn't already have inside himself; that he hasn't reached it in the deepest parts and it is an example of how respect for nature is born from the intimate perception that one has lying down in the meadow, listening to the rustling of the wind, looking through the half-closed eyes at the iridescence of colors. Like art, nature is a vision that the man of today can leave as an inheritance to the man of tomorrow". I understood that through art passed something else, a subtle desire that touches the soul: so a few years later the meeting with Beuys was fatal, "art is a step towards spirituality ". he would often repeat.
The Casa degli Artisti was beginning to have another meaning for me, intimate, hidden, which would lead me to turn the Casa degli Artisti into the "Casa dei maestri " soon.
justpugliafactory: What is the relationship between Apulian artists and their territory?
Anna: The relationship of Apulian artists with the territory? Nice question...its a contradictory, passionate, maternal, but never conflictual relationship. There is the artist who betrays meaning that it goes beyond tradition, rules and feels the need to move away or escape as it was for Luigi Presicce, to name but one for everyone. There are instead those who strongly feel the call of the earth as a source of creativity and here he lives, seeks and finds his artistic flair.
justpugliafactory: How is Apulian creativity different from that of artists from other parts of Italy and the world?
Anna: The difference is energetic naturally, there is more determination, there is more strength, more matter, more gestures in the artist from the South compared to artists from other parts of Italy or the world.
justpugliafactory: What is the soul of the artists of Salento?
Anna: The soul of the artists from Salento is silent and hides in the folds of its stones and frees itself when there is light. The symbol of the Salento artist is Fernando Schiavano, who moves in the territory with the creative mind of those who are traveling the world, and finds creativity everywhere, entering the homes of emigrants, or in the countryside of old farmers, he is a narrator of the territory through creativity. He has never felt the need of being recognised or being visible. Art for art, as my good friend Luciano Pistoi used to say, a fateful phrase from which the famous Continua gallery was born.
justpugliafactory: Tell us about your project "Ospitalità & Cultura ".
Anna: The"Ospitalità & Cultura "; project was born from the need to create a more specific approach with the territory.
Let me explain... Puglia cannot be standardized as the B&Bs all over the world where tourists exploit natural resources without having a knowledge of the people who live there and who have preserved it with love until then... Everything in life is okay, but not at the expense of those who would like another way of living.
We must strive to find new ways to introduce our territory, attracting a cultural tourism that is more interested in the human being... a hospitality that comes from below, where the fisherman can welcome people who are interested in eating fish or in learning how to fish, and Puglia has a unique human wealth.
justpugliafactory: You often speak of "gentle madness "of Puglia, what is it?
Anna: Gentle madness is creativity taken to its extremes and this happens in all professions, if you like, and
also in the best families. Apulia is a land of arrival, the seed of our soul is cosmic, as for everyone, but for us as stuck in every race, because there is a generosity, an openness and a beauty of soul that distinguishes us and that fascinates those who come from outside being enchanted ... but they do not know that despite living in Apulia you never become Apulian.
Sometimes its sad to see this flow of people coming from all over the world, settling in the masserias, and not creating any exchange... I rebel against this because I love my land and I feel Salento doc, even if I belong to the world.
justpugliafactory: How important is the human relationship in the approach with art?
Anna: Art deals with beauty and with those who appreciate this feeling that brings you closer to God... from this point of view art is not for everyone, however, everyone has the chance to access it and discover something about themselves. This discovery brings you closer to others, opens your mind and makes you more human.
justpugliafactory: Is it important for an artist to take care of the social?
Anna: Yes, its important if you don't set it as a goal but it springs from the innate sensitivity to give yourself
to others through your creativity.
justpugliafactory: Tell me about the project Km0 Segni D`Arte a Sud
Anna: The project Km0 Segni D`Arte a Sud marks a turning point in my artistic adventure because in 2019 the association Nextab was founded, a laboratory of art and architecture to interact with the territory in a wider way. We were in an old tobacconists shop of 800sqm that allowed us to make an Archive, to give life
to workshops, as it was for the workshop "Traces of Tobacco", where we gathered the tobacconists to talk about the experience they had lived in that place...it was very exciting to see the grandmothers who showed their grandchildren where they were sitting when they worked tobacco.
This event was followed by the exhibition Km0 with 13 artists, a few years earlier they had started with success abroad, others had stayed in Puglia and were still as good. To bring them together seemed to me a stimulus and a party, everyone was present: wine, orecchiette and music welcomed 2000 people. But the most important challenge comes with the Artistic Residence "Umana Natura" supervised by me and Adriana Polveroni, with the master Nagasawa who followed the workshop. For many people it seemed an impossible challenge.
Cannole (a small village in the Salento inland) and the Torcito farm (a magical and uncontaminated place) were the stage for this adventure.
For three months I studied the territory, I wanted each family to host an artist, in exchange they would make a work. With great effort, I succeeded...
Anna Cirignola
Those interested in learning more and starting a path of self-awareness and personal growth can contact Anna personally.
Located in the heart of Salento at three km from Lecce, 15 km from the Adriatic Sea and 10 km from the bay of San Isidoro
Anna Cirignola mail: annaluce.ci@gmail.com
