The Mediterranean Sea has always represented the cradle of great civilizations and a crossroads of people and cultures. We believe it is necessary, vital, to re-appropriate the ancient heritage of the “Sea among the Lands”, through which traditions, religions, and different cultures can interact and enrich themselves, and navigate fluently between the routes of contemporary thought.
The OELLE Mediterraneo Antico Foundation aims to collect this immense intangible heritage to give life to projects for the enhancement of Mediterranean art, history, science and cultures, memories of the past that look to the future.
A polychrome thought that wants to reaffirm attention to research, complexity, the relationship between human beings who, with their actions, tell a world worthy of being narrated, observed, criticized, in its many facets.
The Foundation aims to create cultural synergies with other foundations, museums, academies, universities, scientific platforms, in order to undertake shared paths, aimed at a redefinition of cultural commitment, a concrete dimension, protection action on the territory, space open, hybridization between genres, a place of diffusion and comparison.
The art of thought and action, in a land, Sicily, an island among the islands, Fata Morgana and primeval magma, love and violence, cloaked in stars and inexorable destinies.
And in Sicily, Acicastello (CT) supported by Etna and caressed by the Ionian sea, experimental workshops and scholarships have already been activated for teaching and training contemporary operators; creation and management of memory archives using technologies and international collaborations for educational and museum purposes; workshops aimed at training. Exhibitions of photography, painting, sound installations, sound design, drawing, sculpture, animate meetings and debates, with particular attention to the territory and the languages of the contemporary.
“Sicily tells its story”: projects related to cultural tourism that make the island a natural stage between history and art. A site specific analysis of cultural transits and respect for memory are necessary to make tomorrow a possible option: this is why OELLE Mediterraneo Antico has chosen to dedicate a large space to the experiences of women and men who, like Phil Stern , famous American photographer who documented the American landing in Sicily in 43 with Robert Capa, returned to Sicily 70 years later.
Phil arrived in Catania in 2013, aged 93. Ezio was waiting for him and pushed a wheelchair cloaked in history; those deep eyes had seen and immortalized everything, death and beauty. Phil brought three generations of Stern with him from America. Like an old leader on the threshold of Hades, he wanted to give his family the film of his life, before his great journey.
Ornella took it over, wrapped it in silk and honored the mission; intense days, meetings with young photographers, ordinary people, Carmelo created a book, full of silence. As in a work by Piero Manzoni, that artist’s air, that “vital measure”, praised, and in 2017 the yellow ship of Oelle set sail.
Ornella Laneri
President
Carmelo Nicosia
Director