This summer I spent three weeks in a beautiful village in the north of Italy, where I au-paired for a 7-year-old boy and helped him with his English. While I was there I had the opportunity to discover the work of Italian artist Maria Lai. This combination of experiences gave me an unexpected insight into the significance of relational art: art that builds connections between people or a community, often involving audience participation.
The village of Pezzolo is located in Valle Di Scalve, a mountainous valley in the province of Bergamo. When I arrive, I am hit with the striking view of mountains towering above the village, just a few steps from the front door, and the sound of inaudible Italian dialect trickling through the narrow streets.
The little boy is fearful to engage with me in the first few hours we spend together due to a prominent language barrier. I soon realise that attempting to strike up conversation is too intimidating, so I retrieve paper and colouring pens and begin drawing objects I know he will find recognisable. Soon across his face comes a look of relief, as he quickly reaches for a pen and copies my drawings. “Sun”, I say pointing at the sketch. “Sole”, he returns in Italian, looking rather pleased with himself.
I begin to structure our time together through creating things: over the next few weeks we experiment with paint, pens, cutting and sticking, Lego-building, and baking. It doesn’t take long before the once timid and shy boy transforms into a body of confidence and enthusiasm, as this creativity acts as an escape from the previously immense linguistic divide.
During my stay, his mother gives me a book written by Elena Pontiggia, which follows the journey of Italian artist Maria Lai. Lai used the artistic concept of relational art to connect together the people of her hometown, Ulassai, a mountainous town in Sardinia.
In 1978, Antioco Podda, the town’s Christian Democrat Mayor, invited Lai to design a World War II memorial for the town. Lai refused, and instead proposed carrying out a unique project that she believed would bring the town closer together. After a year and a half of deliberation, the Mayor agreed and requested she do just this.
In September 1981, Lai convinced the whole town, many incredibly sceptical, to take part in Legarsi Alla Montagna (Bound to the Mountain). Her project was inspired by a well-known myth amongst the town: a little girl sheltering from the storm in a cave sees a blue ribbon blowing in the wind. She runs out of the cave and into the storm, chasing the ribbon. Moments later the cave collapses.
Lai’s project recreated this myth by connecting every house in the town with a strip of blue denim, with knots or pieces of bread attached to it as a coding system of the nature of the relationship one household had with another. The ribbon led up to the top of Mount Gedili, a mountain next to Ulassai.
While the ribbon represented a fuse between the town’s inhabitants, even those in conflict, the act of carrying out the project brought the town together too: “It urged people to bury the hatchet, to make peace, to develop relationships with each other, with nature, and with art,” reflects Pontiggia.
Maria Lai’s project was the first significant demonstration of relational art in Italy, and had a lasting and monumental impact. While the denim strips no longer remain in Ulassai, the bonds that the project created and mended amongst the residents of the town are still intact.
Upon learning about Maria Lai, I came to realise that my bond with the boy had also been made stronger through the practice of creating things together. Where there was once a division – due to language rather than conflict! – there was now, in its place, our own way of communicating, playing together, and relating to each other. The art allowed us to educate each other on our own cultures and languages.
My time in Pezzolo taught me many things about Italian culture, language and food, but perhaps the most valuable lesson learnt was the importance of relational art in binding people together. Of course, Maria Lai’s project did not bring about world peace, but it stands out as a demonstration of the impression art can have on a population, and furthermore what we can use relational art to achieve.
As Lai remarks, “Questo dovrebbe far l’arte: farce sentire più uniti. Senza questo non siamo esseri umani.” – “This is what art should do: make us feel more united. Otherwise, we’re not human beings.”