- A project involving students and the residents of an old people’s home in Italy.
At the Vetroricerca glass school in Bolzano, Italy, nothing is quite the same after the students’ meeting with a group of residents of the Villa Armonia Old Folks Home. Together they went on an emotional and adventureous journey through the lives and memories of the old people. From Saturday 15th March 2008 the results of the project are on display at Glasmuseet Ebeltoft in the exhibition ”Memories in Glass”.
”When I was a child, we could not afford a radio. Therefore my father placed cuttery in a bottle and rattled it to make sounds, then the whole family danced.” This is the explanation of one of the works in the exhibition called ”Memories in Glass”. Another work is about sneeking out of the house to dance and yet another work addresses memories of the characteristic smell and taste of soup, as it was made at home.
According to Silvia Levenson, artist and teacher at the Vetroricerca school and initiator of the project, the idea for this project emerged from the simple notion, that glass has been used to keep food and drink from time immemorial. Glass in its immutable nature can keep the memory of Nature intact as no other material. But what happens, if one asks a group of young students to preserve the personal memories of a group of old people?
This question became the starting point for a unique collaboration between students from the school and the inhabitants of the local Old Folks Home. The students were asked to transform the memories of the old people into works of glass, to preserve and express their memories in glass. This developed into a long, intense process with several visits at the Old Folks Home. It also called upon discussion and reflection within the school about issues such as: Do differences in age make us different? What happens to our dreams and our memories? What does it mean to grow old in a society that champions youth as an absolute value?
”We were spellbound by the stories of camping trips, the smell of soaps, the memory of musicians that aren o longer heard,” Silvia Levenson says. For her the project also demonstrates that art can serve the purpose of making visible that which is not, of giving form to the evanescent.
The exhibition opens Saturday 15th March 2008 at Glasmuseet Ebeltoft. It can be seen throughout the Summer and Autumn 2008.
Download images in high resolution here.
As a part of the museum’s work with children and young people, the museum invites schools and Kindergardens in the county of Syddjurs to contribute to the exhibition with a children’s exhibition on the subject.
For further information, please contact head of PR and communication Pia Strandbygaard Frandsen phone +45 86 34 17 99, e-mail: psf@glasmuseet.dk.
