QUEL CHE DI PIÙ CARO

Roma - 2022

I made this mural in Rome for Mart - Millenials Art Work with the Ass.Cult. Dominio Pubblico. It is a project I care a lot about and it speaks of women, courage, strength and love. In a world that has always underestimated the female gender, denied them education, equality, rights, debased their intelligence, there have been women who have fought and believed in their dreams beyond any limits imposed on them. History is full of examples of courageous, strong women who suffered because of a closed, macho society. The theme of the work I am presenting is: Women in Science, and I have chosen to present four incredible women scientists. The first starting from the bottom is Laura Bassi, the first academic and physicist in Italian history, who graduated from the University of Bologna in the 18th century and was the first teacher and researcher in our history. Moving up to the left we find Rosalind Franklin, an outstanding scientist who discovered the structure of DNA in her short life. Unfortunately, this woman was robbed of her discovery by her male colleagues and only today is she recognised for this important scientific discovery. For this reason she is depicted gagged, mute (as history intended) while clutching her science, her life, her daughter to her chest. Climbing further we find Cecilia Payne, a great astronomer, who made incredible discoveries in the early 1900s, including understanding the structure of the galaxy. And finally, at the top of the pyramid we find her, the philosopher Hypatia, for me an emblem of the love of knowledge, life, justice and science. Hypatia was a philosopher, scientist, mathematician and scholar at the turn of the third and fourth centuries AD. She lived through a historical moment of immense change. Born in a free, pagan, cultured Alexandria, she studied philosophy, astronomy and mathematics and then continued her research also as a teacher. Unfortunately, Christianity at that time conquered Alexandria and with this condemnation the city perished and with it culture, freedom, beauty and Hypatia. All these women I have portrayed clutch their science, their passion, their life, their reasons to their chest, they clutch them to their chest so as not to have them snatched away. They are deliberately coloured blue, they are ghosts of history, forgotten and undervalued, but in death (at least) they have found redemption. The background is blue, midnight blue, blue like the male stereotype, destroyed and worn by these female scientists, because knowledge has no gender and neither does love. The project was promoted by: Roma Capitale - Department of Culture Winner of the public notice Contemporaneamente Roma 2020/21/23 Realised in collaboration with Siae_official Realised in collaboration with Municipality VII Cultureroma

QUEL CHE DI PIÙ CARO

Roma - 2022