Synopsis
At the opening of the commemorations for the 30th anniversary of the Salvemini Massacre, a small group of students takes it upon themselves to represent all the classmates of today and yesterday and carries on their shoulders the monumental image that the artist Virginia Zanetti has created with them.
The school appears empty, in the long interval of the lockdown, but it is not: it comes back to life with this inaugural procession, with this large image that tells of resistance and rebirth - a spur for those who, then as now, live in a difficult time.
The work
Companions over time. In December 1990, a broken down military plane crashed into the Salvemini technical institute in Casalecchio di Reno, killing 12 students from class 2A and injuring 88 classmates from other classes. Thirty years later, in December 2020, a monumental image is placed in the new Salvemini: it represents today's students who, having climbed the Calanchi of Monte Sabbiuno, hold up the earth, like pillars. On those gullies, in December 1944, 100 young partisan comrades had been shot by the Nazi-Fascists.
This meeting between 3 generations of young people was conducted by the Tuscan artist Virginia Zanetti, as a new outcome of her ongoing project The Pillars of the Earth, which she has already taken to various places in Italy and around the world. The collective action proposed by the artist to the community he meets – in this case to the students of the Salvemini theater workshops – is simple and surprising: to assume the vertical position together. This act acquires meanings and resonances in relation to the chosen place and the legacy that this community of students embodies – 30 years after the massacre. The reversal of the point of view occurs both for those who perform the action and for those who observe the final image, which is also upside down. In this way, those who do the handstand support the world, becoming a pillar of the earth, and propose to the observer to renew their way of seeing in turn. The action, the place, the community trigger a process of collective construction of new ideas. So 30 years later, the memory of the massacre becomes an invitation to life, rebirth, resistance, solidarity, responsibility.
The collective performance created by Virginia Zanetti with the students of Salvemini generated two images of The Pillars of the Earth both hosted, as well as in the Institute, also in the permanent collection of MAMBO (Museum of Modern Art of Bologna).
Credits
Workshop, direction, editing: Massimiliano Briarava
Running time: 5'06''
Year: 2020
Genre: docufilm
Production: ITE Salvemini
Music: Paolo Estorm
Assistance: Luca Mazza
Drone: Mauro Cioni
Music: Paolo Estorm
With the students: Mattia Ballestri, Greta Campagnoli, Lucia Capasso, Lorena Jivan, Giulia Palmieri, Elena Trovò, Anastasia Uzun.