Agata on the road 2022
In viaggio con Agata
Even in 2022, in the COVID emergency, the OELLE Foundation felt the need to give its contribution, through the language of art, to a city that found itself, for the second time, in silent devotion. Until March 4, 2022, the spaces of the GAM (Galleria d'Arte Moderna) in Catania welcomed, in the heart of the city, AGATA enthusiasts, travelers, devotees or lay people. The exhibition Agata on the road, with its different narratives, photography, sculpture, video, sound art, included parallel stories for a different vision of the Agatha cult, emphasizing the relationship between Agata and the streets, Agata and the sounds, Agata and the population of a city without filters.
Agata's journey was also the journey of her relics from Constantinople to Catania and, above all, a treasure chest of symbolic references linked to the sacredness of women that have marked the religious tradition of the ancient populations of the eastern and central Mediterranean. Traditions that find a perfect syncretism in Agata. Agata on the road/Travelling with Agata is the title of the collateral exhibition, also desired by the Oelle Foundation in collaboration with the University of Catania, curated by Prof. Nicola Laneri, which saw the display, in the central building of the Etna university, of symbols and objects linked to the cult of Demeter, Kore and Isis coming from the votive offering of Saint Francis, from archaeological areas of ancient Catania and from the Occhiolà-Grammichele site. These are the different forms of religious materiality inherent in the popular festival of devotion to Saint Agatha and, in particular, archaeological aspects that link the festival to the archaic symbolisms inherent in the tradition of female cults of the ancient Mediterranean.
Auralità Agatina, 2022
di Michele Spadaro
Sound as a device to represent the human and immaterial reality that infuses the city of Catania during the festivities of Sant’Agata. A sound journey that aims to convey the passion, humanity and rituality generated in this particular moment of the year. The composition also conveys the need and desire of the city to return to these celebrations.
