The photographic exhibit "Tribes, The last breath on earth" was inaugurated at the Museum of Chinese Art and Ethnography in Parma, with 13 great portraits by Arturo Delle Donne on display from February 10th
The photographic exhibition "TRIBES, The last breath on earth", scheduled for some time was finally presented on Tuesday Feb. 9th 2021, at the Museum of Chinese Art and Ethnography in Parma through an on-line press conference. It will be open from Feb. 10th to August 29th, 2021.
The Museum of the Xaverian missionaries has long been committed to giving space to cultures born before modern technology, grown in isolation, never contaminated and now often violated and forgotten. The marriage with photographer Arturo Delle Donne was thus inevitable. "I love to investigate cultural diversity, a diversity that slowly and silently disappears" - said the artist - ". Thus this exhibition was born.
Bodies can become the artist’s canvases. They welcome shapes and colors; they show themselves and are able to speak, for they hold a strong and ancient language. Through skin drawings, people have conveyed precious information for millennia: knowledge such as tribe belonging or social ranking, the readiness to face the enemy, the ritual of a wedding or a personal initiation, the account of a profound feeling such as mourning, or simply showing your own identity.
Progress can recklessly suffocate great elements of entire cultures, and will erase this noble form of body language from the planet, as well as so many languages and cultural expressions. At the beginning of the 19th century, the great anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski talked about rescue ethnography, emphasizing the need to document all those customs that otherwise would be lost.
Arturo Delle Donne recovers powerful tribal stylistic features from Papua New Guinea, Amazonia, Australia, Ethiopia, Peru, Burkina Faso, New Caledonia, reproducing them with care and precision on the faces of students, workers, young graduates, people borrowed from daily Western world. "In this project - he explains - I used a typical fashion style of photography to emphasize the analogy that exists between dressing for the Western world and putting on makeup for indigenous peoples."
"It is no coincidence - says Father Alfredo Turco, director of the Museum of Chinese Art and Ethnography - that the images of Delle Donne will be exhibited close to the contemporary exhibit entitled 'Fashion in the World', as well as our dedicated spaces to the permanent collection, testifying to our centenary mission aimed at preserving and enhancing non-European cultures.”
"It is significant - suggests Chiara Allegri, vice-director of the Museum and curator of the exhibition - that when these tribal features are silenced, humans in our world will rediscover body language as a tool for communicating with others. It’s indeed a chilling paradox. While the peoples who have practiced body painting, lip disc insertion, body piercing and body modification for centuries are dying out, in the Western world these ancient practices are discovered and received, yet without the original knowledge. Tattoos and piercings are heirs of 'ancient words', thus painted words.”
Opening Hours: The Museum observes the following hours: Tuesday to Friday 9-13 and 15-19. In compliance with the provisions of the D.P.C.M. January 14, will be closed on Saturdays and Sundays. It will reopen in total safety, limiting the maximum number of co-present visitors and guaranteeing contingent use methods as well as compliance with the rules of social distancing.
Guided tours (in Italian, French and English) are possible for small groups of 6-10 people (cost of 5 euros per person) upon reservation.
