#oreste3

[progettooreste]

Subject: FW: valutazione su oreste tre dalla finlandia Sent: 29-10-1920 7:41 Received: 3-11-2000 18:23 Oggetto: valutazione su oreste tre dalla finlandia Oreste 3, Montescaglioso (MT), Italy For me Oreste 3 was the best because: – I learned the phrase “networking”. – I met a lot of artists from all over the world. – I met a lot of Italian artists. – I met a lot of local Montescaglians. – I learned about art being and going social. – I got new contacts and an artproject to join. – I got a lot of influences to my own artistic work. – I got a lot of good food. – I had a good time (the best, very best). Antti Vaaranmaa Mustasaari, Finland ________________________________________________ 06.10.2000 Shortly about Oreste 3 Only a week before our departure a friend from school called and asked if I wanted to go to Italy for two weeks. I couldn't say no though I didn't really know where are we going and what are we going to do. Later on I got some information about the workshops and that there will be young Italian artists as well as from many other European countries. I couldn't wait for to meet all these people and hear a bit what's going on all over Europe! We were taken good care of from the minute we stepped out of the train in Taranto. Everything was organized well; food, apartment, meetings, Oreste office, excursions to interesting places and so on. Thanks for the organizers who worked so many hours to make sure everything is just how it should be. Though we planned a little show for Sassadoro-festival, organized a dinner with Ferdinando and built up a sauna on the beach we still had a lot of time to look around in Montescaglioso. We also had time to just sit in cafe and discuss with other young artists, which was great. On top of that we got a chance to drive down to the beach and relax a bit. So I think program was convenient. Not too much or too little to do. For me the most exciting things were excursion to Matera and taking part to "feeling sense of home"-workshop. Giovanna took me and Heidi to play cards with couple of old men. It was very memorable moment to actually do something with local people. In my opinion the only thing which could be done better is getting the office functional on the day first guests arrive. Orestes office was very important and good place to work at, meet other participants and get information. That's why I think it would be good if it could be in use from the very first day. This summer residence gave me a lot. New contacts to different European countries and lots of good memories of all the nice people. I also got some ideas while I was photographying on the streets of Montescaglioso. And I hope that I learned to see "time" a bit more like Italians see it. Up here in Scandinavia it would be scandal if you had to wait for someone more than five minutes... stressing. So my first experience of Italy was very good. I'm glad that I got to see a little bit of Basilicata instead of the biggest cities. I think I could've found my way to Rome or Milan but I never would've found Montescaglioso on my own. Sanna Heikintalo Nykarleby, Finland

Received: 3-11-2000 18:23

[progettooreste]

Warsaw, at home, 22.08.2000

– Oreste, Oreste, is this a kind of workshop?

Hmmm… Italy. If it is a workshop with excursions I’d like to come. What projects? About kitchen? I’ve been writing diploma about kitchen. Second project connected with people? I can talk, I speak Italian a little. OK, I check it at Internet. It’s no need to do art? Only take a part in one of the projects. I see…

– Lukasz, Do you know what is this Oreste?

– No, I don’t. But you should go. I hope it will be nice, you will meet some new people. And don’t forget to take their addresses to visit them later. Hmm, I think Oreste participated at the Venice Biennale.

– I was at Biennale, but I don’t remember any Oreste.

– It was an empty space with tables and papers.

– I have to check it in the catalogue…Yes, There is! „Who is Oreste? Nobody is Oreste. Oreste is not a group…”

– Super.

– Listen, Lukasz, They don’t want us to do art.

– Well, you would take pictures.

– But, there will come only artists.

– Yes, this is probably a kind of art holidays.

– No, I think I should go as a journalist, as Raster magazine. And I will write an article about this Oreste, if I will manage to understand what it is.

– Great.

– Mammy, It is not a sect. They were at the Venice Biennale. At Biennale do not show charlatans. Besides I go with Dorota.

– Come tomorrow to take some money. You should have some money, just in case…

– But where in Basilicata?

– Montescaglioso, near Matera, Auntie.

– I wanted to visit it during my stay  in Italy. This is a wild province. “Christ stopped in Eboli”.

– What?

– Don’t you know this book or film based on it?

– Lukasz, I go to a wild country. Even Christ did not reach there.

– Italian country cannot be worst then Polish one, rather better.

Montescaglioso, before Moslem dinner, 29.08

– This is a piece of cardboard for you. And here there are markers and sprays.

– What to paint?

– Something abstractive to make an impression of the Moslem carpet.

– Abstractive… Hmm… I should paint some Moslem patterns. In Warsaw we have an Arabian carpets collection and I saw it two times, but I don’t remember any pattern. What to do? I’m starting from the border with some geometric plants. Then I’ll put a rectangular lake in the middle. Water and plants are always meaningful.

– This is not abstractive.

– Well, Yes. I can do something new.

– Oh, no, no... OK, I like it.

– Look at him. He is all dressed white.

– I’m afraid that his trousers will be dirty if he sits at this sprayed cardboard.

– That’s why I put dark trousers on.

– Look, he is putting a towel under his seat.

– So, why did he ask us to paint all these cardboard carpets?

– I was said that we would eat by hands without spoons, really like Moslems.

– Good idea, but everybody uses the spoon.

– I think eating like Moslems means that men and women eat separately, we after men.

– Do you want to wait for your turn, when men have eaten the best food?

– No, but eating with spoons is lack of radicalism.

– Natasha eats without using spoon. It doesn’t look like a dinner, it looks like a cabaret.

Montescaglioso, at Italian family, 1.09

– Buongiorno Signora.

– Buongiorno, I am fat and that is why I am tired. Where are you from?

– From England and Poland.

– I saw a queen on television and from Poland … the pope is from Poland.

Matera, cafe, 8.09  

– When I came here I couldn’t understand what is going on. Do they want me to do any work?  I’d rather do something together with others.

– I have felt lost for the first few days and I have been nervous. Then I’ve picked up the rhythm of common breakfasts, lunches and dinners.

– Now I feel very well.

– If we call Oreste all the excursions, discussions, knowing people, swimming, dancing and everything we do here, Oreste means Oreste.

– Yes, we are Oreste now.

15 things which astonished me during Oreste:

– some mutual friends beyond Oreste with people whom I met at Oreste;

– an office closed for 3 days because of lack of a computer;

– a siesta which can cause a disaster (you cannot copy anything for the public presentation);

– a total lack of water in a city for some days;

– a cook who doesn’t want any help in preparation of your dinner;

– a kind of mozzarella cheese stretching like a chewing gum;

– too late dinner time, against any reasonable diet;

– the wild Sassi people fighting with the civilised Oreste people to catch some food during an integrating dinner;

– the difficulties in keeping silent during the Benedictine dinner;

– a popular form of selling own fruits in front of a house;  

– a shop-assistant who doesn’t know the prices of the products she sells;

– an existence of Fiat 126p, the car from the 70s, standing at Italian street, just like in Poland;

– the people taking the same pictures;

– the enormous sea waves in Metaponto;

– a bucket of watermelons prepared by Finnish to the beach.

Goska Charylo