Art twinning between Italy and France in the name of street art

Inaugurated in Terni the murals created by French artist Caroline Derveaux on the occasion of the 2020 edition of GemellArte, an international contemporary art festival created to revitalize twinning between cities in different countries, particularly between Italy and France, and to enhance local heritage.

In fact, the first artistic residency scheduled for this year’s edition of the Festival has just concluded. The theme is Renaissance, and it has the patronage of the French Embassy in Italy and the Institut Français Italia.
A double residency between Terni, its organizers’ city of choice in Umbria, and Saint-Ouen, a few kilometers from Paris, twinned since 1962, whose winners were selected through an international call last month.

The protagonist of the residency held in Terni was French artist Caroline Derveaux, who created two murals in the Umbrian city: Naissance à Terni (on Via Giotto) and Renaissance à Terni (on Via dei Castelli, corner of Via del Tribunale).
The two walls are located respectively in a neighborhood whose streets are dedicated to artists of all times, from Masaccio to Michelangelo, and a short distance from the music conservatory named after Giulio Briccialdi, a 19th-century Italian flautist and composer.

“Times are difficult,” the artist herself explains, “but we need to focus and tap into our collective optimism, the cultural values that allow us to resist, escape and dream. When I arrived in Terni about ten days ago, I met a multitude of incredible people who are fighting for a more interesting, colorful and inspiring city. I decided to create a fresco that conveys positivity, comfort and love, in which we find charismatic elements of Terni, such as the church of San Francesco, the surrounding architecture and some features of the metal press, which I discovered with wonder during my first steps in the city. It was a very pleasant surprise to hear so much goodwill around the project. I learned about the call and the exchange offered by Saint-Ouen with the city of Terni by chance, as I was walking, taking a road I had not planned to travel. Good things happen when you let yourself be surprised.”

Chiara Ronchini, artistic director of the Festival, thus describes the Escape doors designed and created by Caroline Derveaux, magical doors to pass through to escape from everyday reality. "The artist chose warm tones, not only for a consistency with the surrounding urban reality, but also because, as she herself repeated several times, ’these colors I chose them to embrace you, to give you affection. Renaissance is this year’s theme, and our rebirth lies, much more than symbolically, in the birth of the wall of Via Giotto, in a place that, finally after years, now returns to life thanks to art, and to meet glances, welcome thoughts and desires. With GemellArte we wanted to give the city and its inhabitants a rebirth of places, but above all of souls: I can say, with immense pride and satisfaction, that we succeeded."

The second residency scheduled in Saint-Ouen in the coming days will feature Ozmo, among the best-known Italian street artists. In the French city, the Italian artist will paint a work inspired by The Courtier, the portrait that Raphael Sanzio made of Baldassare Castiglione, a leading intellectual of the Italian Renaissance.

Ph.Credit Fabrizio Borelli

Art twinning between Italy and France in the name of street art

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