Since I moved to Italy I wanted to focus one of my university interventions on elderly people. After all, I felt the urge of taking in account the circumstances that are affecting all of us, highlighting that kind of population.
As I explained in one my previous blog, my lovely-not-so-lovely village homes around 6.000 peoples of which 5.900 are elderly. And they all are around 80's plus.
My initial though was to design and run a workshop on teaching art in the local care home. The main idea was pivoting around the fact that I do believe there is an artist inside each one of us and my aim was to bring that artist on the surface of every care home resident. I would have brought with me white canvases, paints and brushes and, with no agenda, I'd have played some music and encouraged those people to follow their instinct, to feel free and to express themselves.
Unfortunately social restrictions due of Covid-19 forced my project to be adapted and to be executed in a different way from the one I originally planned. I now had restricted access to the care home and - thanks to the suggestion of my university course director, I/we came out with the idea of a box.
If I couldn't not make my way within those walls in person, my box certainly will.
And this is when the concept of the Art [Box] was born.
The Art [Box] is a box like no others. It is designed in 'My Style', Alice's style - featuring the same patterns that are now becoming my signature - my way of making art with my unique mixed art technique.
Inside, the box contains all the material necessary to create DIY Christmas cards.
From colourful pencils to Christmas ribbons and textiles, scissors, glues, glitters, white envelopes and A5 cards,...even instructions. Everything has been taken in consideration in order to create a fun and easy experience for those residents.
The idea of creating Christmas cards was perfectly suited perfectly the times we are living in. We are almost a month away from the festivities and those people haven't seen their loved ones for months.
I named this project ALICE and her wonderland made of Art & Hope.
I firstly contact the mayor of the village (he is also the CEO of the care home) proposing him my idea. After his thumb up, he put me in direct contact with the animators of the creative team of the care home. I was overwhelmed of joy when Patrizia, the lead team animator, sharing equal excitement for this project, allowed the access of the box within the care home walls. She also said the project will be featured in a local newspaper.
Being able to reach actively my main stakeholders and to get their full support was a great rewarding achievement and it really gave a boost to my confidence. It was something that I truly needed after the uncertainty experienced during my past few weeks.
What really drove me to pursue this project despite barriers presented by Covid was my core passion and drive toward this project:
“I spent my first lockdown completely on my own in my house in East London, far away from any human connection and, most importantly, miles away from my family.
It was a life-changing experience.
I personally found in the Arts a meaningful way of living, and a powerful tool to bring hope and joy in people' lives. And it is for this reason that I wanted to bring part of that magical world inside a care home. A bit of Alice's wonderland.
You can see a short video I created here.
And now, with the artistic name of Alice Bialetti, I am working on multiple projects:
from a photographic collection called Lockdown Diaries 2.0, to two Art collections, one oil on canvas and one mixed art with acrylic and collage technique - both planned to be ready for Spring 2021, with the potential of see those as powerful iterations for my university MA course and my very personal launch as an Artist.
I also created a lab where I am currently refurbishing antique furniture. I found a great passion in giving a second life to beautiful objects and I am planning to create a local workshop and a dedicated e-store once social restrictions will be eased and social barriers will extinct.
And last but not the least, I am still developing my Performance Art with new videos and I launched a channel of IG called theNkdAerialist, with the aim of demystify the nude body as a pure sexual object but instead, bring awareness of the exceptional powerful skills of the female body.