122 that I put on the bed. There is a stain of blood on the hem of the skirt, but it does not sadden me at all because I think that one day I know that from today I am finally free. Yesterday I saw the rainbow, and I realized that our freedom is us. With love, your Pierre. Paris, (illegible), 1789 More than two centuries have passed since this non-real, but still so real missive. Let's stay in Paris. It is 2001. UNESCO, United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization, gathered in its thirtyfirst session, unanimously approves the Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity as a common heritage of humankind. In article 1 we read: «Culture takes diverse forms across time and space. This diversity is embodied in the uniqueness and plurality of the identities of the groups and societies making up humankind. As a source of exchange, innovation and creativity, cultural diversity is as necessary for humankind as biodiversity is for nature». And article 2 points out: « […] Cultural pluralism gives policy expression to the reality of cultural diversity. Indissociable from a democratic framework, cultural pluralism is conducive to cultural exchange and to the flourishing of creative capacities that sustain public life». From diversity to pluralism stands the space consumed between real and ideal, between how it is and how it should be. From diversity to pluralism stagnates the still too vast distance that separates tolerance from welcoming. And it's not just a matter of a subtle difference in attitude. God is not to be prayed just by beating one's own chest, God is to be welcomed. Once again, the enormous importance of art related to human rights lives in its being a universal language, capable of both bringing together distant cultures and reclaiming forgotten or, worse still, deliberately erased identities. This is why art has often given a voice to those who have been forced, in coerced silence, to leave their country to see their rights as human beings respected. The difference between tolerance and welcoming lies in knowing how to lend a hand first and unconditionally. In Where we come from (2001-2003), the Palestinian artist Emily Jacir, holder of an American passport, does nothing but ask a simple question to Palestinians like her, who live in cities far away in the world like her but who, unlike her, can no longer return to Palestine: If I could do something for you, anywhere in Palestine, what would it be? We enter her silent installation on tiptoe, we see her crossing physical and psychological boundaries on behalf of others, on behalf of others carrying out small yet, evidently, immense actions – eating a traditional dish in a given place, carrying flowers to a grave, paying a bill – not always succeeding, but always reporting the story of each of the people involved, to connect herself to them, to reconnect themselves one to each other, to connect ourselves to them. The work of the Danish artist Danh Vō, of Vietnamese origin, combines the themes of capitalism, colonialism and religion with an investigation into the actual state of the art of universal human rights, bonding them to intimate personal narratives – what he calls the tiny diasporas of a person's life. In 1979, when he was 4, his family fled Vietnam on a makeshift boat and was rescued by a Danish ship. Vō Rosasco Rasmussen (2002 - ongoing) is a project that documents Danh Vō’s marriages; a project started with the marriage with two of his dear friends, first Mia Rosasco, then Mads Rasmussen. A project still pursued nowadays, in which Danh Vō keeps on choosing to marry – and, almost immediately, to divorce – with people without a residence permit, indicated to him by his family or friends, helping them and at the same time relating themes such as colonialism and migration to his own identity as a migrant, as a gay, as a human. The only residue of these events is the permanent extension on his documents of his legal name, first definition of a person, symptomatic of how much bureaucracy can affect an individual's self-determination, often leading to conform instead of exercising a sacrosanct right of choice. «One day Pia Klemp, anti-fascist activist for human and animal rights and commander of ships on a humanitarian mission, received the following email: Hello Pia, I’ve read about your story in the papers. You sound like a badass. I am an artist from the UK and I’ve made some work about the migrant crisis, obviously I can’t keep the money. Could you use it to buy a new boat or something? Please let me know. Well done. Banksy. Despite the appearance, it was no joke: and today the boat exists, and it is operational. And its dedication to Louise Michel (1830-1905), an extraordinary figure of French anarchist who spent a lifetime for women's right to education, without ever yielding to male domination, gives an idea of the degree of cultural awareness of the operation. Banksy's letter to Pia Klemp should feature in any 21st-century artistic literature anthology. The central conceptual junction is this: “I have made works about migrants, and obviously I can't keep that money. So I have to invest it for migrants". In several murals scattered around the world Banksy represented the humanity of migrants, their thirst for justice, their persecution. The purpose of these works is profoundly political: they serve not to make sleep all those good people convinced that they live in democratic and lawful States. [...] So today those who want to see, in this part of summer, a true work of art – in deep communion with the sea, with human nature and with Politics with a capital P – can look, in the ports of Southern Italy, for the Louise Michel. Finding it, it might even happen to him to find himself again» (Tomaso Montanari,
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NDUzNDc=