The Wandering Gods

When and how did the ancient humans decide to create the sacred spots where their Gods or prophets will live? With time, they decided to create elaborate homes for their Gods but sometimes, the Gods were left out in the open or travelled around with wandering holy-men and sometimes with the holy-women or were carried out of their homes periodically, in processions. I call these the wandering Gods.

This post focuses on some of the my experiences about the wandering Gods.

Most of my experiences of such events are linked with my travels in different parts of the world, especially in India. (Click on the images for bigger pictures)

Sacred Spots for Ancient Humans 

I think that ancient humans chose at least two different kinds of sacred spots.

(1) Some of those sacred spots were along the ancient pathways, for the travellers. At these spots, usually they did not build elaborate structures. Often, these were simple stone-towers or coloured clothes tied on or around trees. Sometimes these sites were close to the water sources.

For example, in Mongolia I saw the stone put together, often accompanied by flower trees and colourful scarfs, along the important pathways, criss-crossing its land. I was told that each stone in that place is sacred and you are prohibited from taking away even a single stone from those places.

 

I think that many persons have started believing in building such stone-towers. I saw them in a forest in Arizona (USA), as well as, in the river bed behind our home in Schio (Italy).

Similar to those stone-towers in Mongolia, are the tree shrines, that are so common in India. There was a small Hindu temple in central part of Mozambique, where I had seen a beautiful tree shrine around a huge Peeple tree. The image below has a tree shrine from a rural area in Madhya Pradesh (India).

 

(2) Other, more important sacred spots were places where the hunter-gatherers came together for big clan meetings. Often these were near rivers and streams or on the top of mountains. Prehistoric caves where rock art has been discovered were also chosen as sacred sites. These became sites of seasonal or periodic fairs and pilgrimages.

For example, the vast area around the confluence (Sangam) of Ganges and Yamuna rivers in Prayagraj (India) is visited by millions of persons during the 6 or 12 yearly Kumbh fair.

 

Specific Energy Fields For the Sacred Spots 

There is another aspect of the selection of sacred spots, about which my knowledge is limited - areas with auspicious or positive energy fields.

I have read that many ancient temples were built in areas that had a special kind of energy and thus, many of the more recent churches were built in their places when the old pagan religions were abandoned.

For example, I had read that the beautiful Santo Stefano church in Bologna (Italy) was built at the site of an older temple dedicated to Venus. People talk of the positive energy of this church. 

Some years ago, while on a walk in the forest behind the Bashistha temple in Guwahati (India) in India, I had met a Sadhu (ascetic) who had told me about the special energy that comes out of the ground and the rocks. I had put my hand on that spot but I was unable to feel any energy, which was there according to that Sadhu.

Perhaps, ancient humans, shamans and mystics are more open psychologically to such experiences of energy-fields and thus, chose specific sites for their prayer places. Or as the Sadhu had told me, "You have to learn to quieten your mind, then you can feel it." 

Gods Come Out of Their Abodes for a Procession

There is another sacred tradition that continues from old times - that of the Gods in procession. Sometimes, the icons and symbols of Gods are brought out of their temples or churches and are carried out in processions.

For example, when I lived in Bologna (Italy), I remember the annual procession in the evening, when the Madonna statue was taken out of the Bertalia church and carried out in a procession along the streets and parks.

 

Another example is from Delhi (India), where floats carrying statues and persons dressed as Gods travelled on floats for the annual Ram Lila in which the story of Ramayana was enacted.

 

I remember a more complex example of such procession in Cidade Alta in Salvador de Bahia (Brazil), where the descendents of the slaves brought from Africa, who were forced to convert to Christianity, had merged their African Orisha Gods with the Christian saints.

 

In Himachal Pradesh (India), in the mountains around the town of Kullu, each mountain village has its own deity in a temple, many of whom come from older folk-traditions. Around the festival of Dusshera every year, all of them are carried out in procession to Kullu, where they live in temporary temples along with all the other deities.

In Karnataka (India), they have a tradition of men carrying in annual processions the Gods in their temples on their heads without holding it with their hands, while persons dressed as warriors carrying swords accompany them for protection.

 

Finally, in another example from Kerala (India) I remember the tradition of Theyyam in which there were men dressed as Gods, who invoked the Gods to descend in their bodies, to give benedictions and to answer questions.

Herders Moving Their Homes And Temples   

As hunter-gatherers were replaced by people owning cattle, they usually shifted their homes with the seasons, looking for grasslands and fodder for their cattle. They also took their Gods when they moved homes. 

I saw a group of herders in Mongolia, who had travelled from their villages to an area next to a lake, where they were setting up their home-tents and their temple.

 

Wandering Triptychs & Tripitaks

Travelling story-tellers, ascetics and mystics, was another group of people who carried sacred icons with them to the different communities. For the wandering Gods, sometimes, their sacred images were depicted on scrolls or portable temples, which could be folded and carried easily.  

The term Triptych (literally 3 tablets) comes from Latin and Greek, it is used frequently in conjunction with Christian sacred images. A triptych has 3 panels, one bigger central panel with two side panels which are attached to the central part like a door. Thus, the panels can be closed and it becomes a box, which can be carried around easily, similar to the idea of the wandering Gods.

The foldable Catholic Triptych in the image below is from Victoria & Albert Museum in London (UK). 

 

There is a similar term, Tripitak (3 boxes), used in Buddhism. It comes from Pali language, one of the languages of ancient India, which was used by Buddha for his preaching. It denotes an ancient Buddhist book containing all the  discourses of Gautam Buddha, which is divided into three main parts - Vinaypitak, Sutpitak and Dhammapitak, and was perhaps carried around by monks.

Conclusions

The idea of writing this post came from my musings on the similarities between the words "Triptych" and "Tripitak". I hope that you have enjoyed reading it as much as I have enjoyed writing it.

Growing up in India, it is easy to get used to the idea of "God is every where" because in our daily life we can see people praying to cows, trees, mountains, rivers, all the time. At the same time, we can see the wandering Gods - men leading cows bedecked with flowers around the cities, children & adults dressed up as Gods asking for alms, people carrying sacred images or symbols in bowls and buckets to ask for alms on specific days of the weeks at red lights.

I want to mention 2 books that I had read in the 1980s, that have influenced my ideas about religions and gods - Jean M. Auel's series of books (Children of Earth series), starting with the "Clan of the Cave Bear" about the life in a Neanderthal community. Another book that helped me to understand how religions start and grow is "The Source" by James A. Michener in which he looks at different layers of history around a water-spring somewhere in Israel.

Not just about the origins of religions and ideas of Gods, these are great books and if you have not read them, try them.

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Schio Film Festival 2026 - Exhibitions & Performances

The second edition of international film festival of Schio - ISFF, was held from 30 July to 2 August 2026. Among the side-events of the festival were three interesting exhibitions and a couple of performances. This post is about them.

These included an incredible performance by the theatre group Teatro 80 (in the image below - click on the pictures for a bigger view)

If you wish, you can also read my article on the ISFF 2026 side-events about "Art and Cinema".

Story-Telling of Leonardo Ottoni Through His Art

Leonardo Ottoni was born with autism and he is an artist. He lives in Castel San Pietro Terme, not far from Bologna. 

His art was first noted by his teachers in the high school, when they saw him doodling on his notebook and felt that he was a very good artist. Thus, they suggested that he should try making art. (In the image on the left, Leo is showing the walk of a mechanical toy)

This happened around ten years ago. Since then he has been experimenting with oil paintings and his first art exhibition was held in 2017. Over the years, his art work has been shown in many art exhibitions and is used on notebooks, diaries and bookmarks, sold through local stores and cooperatives.

The first thing which Leonardo said to me when I tried to interview him was, "Keep your distance, don't come too close to me." He was not very expressive and articulate when I asked him questions about his artistic journey and his father, Emanuele helped him in this. 

However, sometime later, when Leonardo started explaining his artworks to the public, with the support of his mother Katia, he was transformed as a performer - making sounds, moving around, gesturing and dancing, explaining the ideas that inspire his artworks. (The artworks below were inspired by the music of The Blues Brothers, and talking about them Leo sang the words of a song).

 

He mostly draws animals and birds and uses bright colours. The kitchen in their home is his preferred environment for making art. Many of his works are inspired by music, as he sits in the kitchen listening to the music and ideas about the forms he wants to make come to him. In his presentation of his artworks, he often hums that music and start moving around while explaining the feelings and ideas that music had provoked in him.

Another way his inspiration comes is through visits, such as his visit to the Biosfera in Rome, and through stories and books. Katia explained that initially he full the full stories through his art, but more recently, he can even start from the middle or the end of the story, without needing to express it from the beginning to the end.

I loved Leonardo's artworks and my favourite is the one shown below (made after the visit to the Biosfera in Rome), in which the two cats or lions in the bottom-right are supposed to be Robinhood and Marian. (click on the picture for a bigger view)

The Costumes of Stefano Nicolao

Atlier Nicolao of costume designer Stefano Nicolao is based in Venice. It is famous for his costumes, especially for historical films. Maestro Stefano has done costume-design for many famous films including Marco Polo, Pirates of the Caraibi, Elizabeth, Casanova and Farinelli.

Stefano was unable to be there for the inauguration of his exhibition at ISFF and his friend and collaborator, well-known photographer Attilio Bruni was there to present the costumes from some of his films and serials.

While presenting the costumes, Attilio recounted many stories about the challenges a costume designer faces for films. For example, while shooting for the serial Marco Polo in high mountains, they needed furs and when they asked where to get them, they were brought hundreds of live rams and sheep, which had to be butchered to get their fur.

Attilio also said that Stefano is very particular about perfection and realism in his costumes. For example, if the scene has a hundred Buddhist monks, he wants that each of them is dressed authentically, even if some of them will be at the back and not fully visible.

Apart from costumes for films and serials, Atelier Nicolao in Venice can rent costumes, take your picture in a historical costume, organise guided tours or even organise costume-events for you, naturally all for a fee.

Stefano Nicolao is originally from Venice and started his carrier as an actor, but then found that he preferred backstage and especially costumes. His carrier took off after he assisted Enrico Sabbatini for the costumes of the TV serial Marco Polo in 1980, where he designed costumes and sets for the unit shooting in Tibet. In that same year he founded Atelier Nicolao, which is considered as one of the most important global sources for historical costumes. 

The Dresses of Banco Lotto N. 10 - Costumes by Prisoner Women

This exhibition presented the costumes made by the women inmates of Giudecca prison in Venice. Banco Lotto N. 10 is a social cooperative. 

This project was started in 2001 by the Cooperative Il Cerchio to teach an earning skill to the women inmates of the prison, and was funded by European Union and others. That project had concluded with a fashion show by the women prisoners and jail officers.

The success of the initial project, prompted the continuation of this activity in the prison and a boutique was opened in 2003 where people could buy their costumes.

Some famous local dressmakers and weavers of Venice such as Rubelli and Tessitura Bevilacqua collaborate with them to ensure high quality work. They also make the costumes for the famous Fenice theatre of Venice. They also get a space at the art biennale of Venice to showcase their products.

Teatro 80 Presents the Poems of Alda Merini

Alda Merini (1931-2009) was an Italian poet and writer. She is an iconic figure in the Italian literary scene. Among her life's experiences was a bipolar disturbance which led her to a psychiatric hospital for a period and this experience inspired some of her most famous works about madness.

Teatro 80 is a local theatre group in Schio, which was formed in 1980 and continues to be active. For ISFF, persons from Teatro 80, made an open-air theatre and dance performance on the streets in the city centre of Schio, based on some of the poems of Alda Merini.

Dressed in black and having a white muslin cloth as a prop, the actors-dancers created emotionally charged choreographies in the different parts of the city, supported by 3 musicians. On the guitar was my friend Roberto Rizzato. Alda Merini's daughter, Emanuela Carniti was also present during this performance.

It was an absolutely amazing performance, expressing the anguish and strong emotions of the poet. It was even more incredible because it was an afternoon of one of the hottest day of this season in Schio.

Some years ago, I had participated in a workshop on Theatre and Photography organised by Teatro 80. If you wish, you can read that as well. 

In The End

With ISFF - International Scledum Film Festival, Schio has one more important cultural activity in its already rich calendar of events. Considering that it is just a tiny little town, it is absolutely amazing that we can enjoy so many cultural events and a especial joy for me, as I can meet so many interesting persons for my blog.

If I have to choose one favourite side-event of ISFF, it would be the performance by Teatro 80 on the poems of Alda Merini. I liked it also because it was not an aseptic performance. As you can see from the image below, with children running between the performers, it was a performance in which the city was an active participant.

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Read the first part of the article on ISFF 2026

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Schio Film Festival 2026 - Art & Cinema

The second edition of Schio's film festival called ISFF - International Scledum Film Festival 2026 concluded yesterday (2 August). ISFF has a competitive section for the short and experimental films and there is a non-competitive section for other films. All the events of ISFF, including film projections are free and open to public.

In this post I want to touch on some of the side-events of ISFF which looked at the role of art in cinema.

"The Colours Behind the Windows" Art Exhibition

This exhibition was created by students of the Art Institute Arturo Martini of Schio. Inspired by the film "Rear Window" (1954) by Alfred Hitchcock, the students recreated some of this film's scenes in oil paintings and terracotta sculptures.

Some of the scenes were recreated in both, paintings and terracotta sculptures, so it was possible to compare the two and understand how the medium affected the art expression. For example, look at the images below and compare how that same scene is rendered in oil painting and in terracotta. (Click on the images for a bigger view)

 

I felt that the painting was better able to express emotions, and it could be a little abstract, giving the spectator the freedom to give it a meaning. It could also represent the physical reality better, for example, the transparency of the window panes. The terracotta was more defined, more physical and made it easier to identify objects, but IMO it was not able to express the emotions of the film.

However, I also feel that the level of terracotta work by the students was a little gross and perhaps, a better terracotta work, as done by some master artisans, could have been more impactful.

The terracotta sculptures were coordinated by prof. Alice Leoni and the paintings by prof. Francesca dal Santo. The art works were made by the students of different classes of the institute. 

History of Italian Cinema Through Posters of Some Iconic Films

This was an exhibition of posters. I was lucky that the organiser of this exhibition, Elena Tenga, was accompanying me and thus I was able to briefly talk to her.

Elena said that she is a film critic and a film historian. She has been collecting posters of Italian films and in her collection she has posters for the period 1930-1980. Some of the posters, which have handwritten dedications of the actors and directors. For example, one of the posters in the exhibition had a handwritten dedication by well-known Italian actor, Ornella Muti.

About the evolution of the film posters, Elena said that initially these posters were hand-painted and there were some well-known poster making artists such as Anselmo Ballester. Then came the posters using the photographs.

Many film directors took great interest in the design of their films and their posters. Some like Federico Fellini, used to design the full story-board for their films and thus decided the visual look of his films.

Dressing the Film-Characters - A Masterclass by Catherine Buyse

Catherine Buyse is a film costume designer based in Venice. With a Belgian father and an Italian mother, Catherine grew up in Belgium. She studied dress design and initially started in the area of fashion designing.

Her first experiences in film-costume designing were with friends who asked for her help for the costumes of videos and short films. She liked this experience so much, also because it was not related to commercialisation of her costumes and gave greater artistic satisfaction, that she decided to pursue it.

She started as someone in the costume designing team and made her way to costume supervision and then finally to becoming the costume designer. She works with the different films which are shot in Venice.

Over the years, she explained, that the work has changed. In the nineties, when there was no internet, when a team arrived from outside to shoot a film in Venice, they did not know local artisans and shops for buying clothes, stitching and preparing costumes for the local actors involved in the shoots, so she had all the contacts. Today with internet, it is easier to come from outside and shoot.

She presented a few films from her portfolio and showed how designing costumes for different kinds of films is different. For example, for a historical film, for different ages of the characters, for different scenes like bombings or water immersion, can create specific artistic challenges for costume design, which can be very different from those faced in a fantasy film. From issues like continuity to wear and tear of costumes during shootings, she gave different examples from her image-archives.

The image below is from her website showing the historical photographs of women from the second world war period, that she chose to design costumes for the heroine of the Italian TV serial "La Storia". This serial was directed by Francesca Archibugi, based on a book by Elsa Morante. It was based during the second world war. She explained that everything, including the underwear, worn by the actors was based on historical research, using materials from that era.

She also explained how the scenes of the world war in Africa and the soldiers dying of intense cold in Siberia, were all shot in Italy on days when the outside temperatures were hovering around 40 degrees. This also helped to understand how actors may need to wear heavy costumes even when it is hot.

For the uniforms of the different armies, it was important to ensure that there were no mistakes and thus, they had an additional consultant for this. About recreating intense cold during an intensely hot summer, she explained the use of artificial snow, salt and paraffin wax over the lips, clothes and shoes. Persons having gangrenes in their toes and noses were recreated through make-up.   

There were some technical glitches during her presentation, so it was delayed and since I had another engagement, I had to miss part of her presentation, but I had found it very fascinating, even if a bit unstructured. It gave a vivid overview of costume designing as a challenging but fulfilling team-work.

Dive e Motori - Parade of Vintage Cars

The rally of beautifully maintained vintage cars was organised by the Historic Club of Schio. Most of the cars for this show and rally came from Schio and surrounding areas.

The vintage car rally, required the cars to go to the Rossi park in Sant'Orso and come back to Schio. While some of the vintage cars were also put on show in Schio's city centre.

Some of the vintage cars are absolutely wonderful, they make me think of Casablanca and James Bond.

Celebrities in Schio

There are a number of celebrities going around the town because of the festival. I noticed the French actor Mark Grosy along with the directors Camille Tello and Leslie Crocquefere and the intimacy coordinator, Rachel Zekri in an exhibition. They are here for their short film "Tria Fata".

Mark Grosy became better known in Italy recently for his role in the serial Sandokan (2025, a remake of the old serial).

In another exhibition, I saw the young Italian actor Sofia d'Elia and didn't recognise her till I later saw her poster! 

In the End

Over the past few years, I prefer books to films. Thus, when Catherine Buys was talking about the costumes of the serial "La Storia", I liked what she told about it and thought that I will read Elsa Morante's book on which this serial is based. So I am not the best person to talk about film festivals.

However, as you can see from my post, even if I don't watch films, there is so much to talk about the art of film-making.

It also makes me feel proud about our tiny little town in the foothills of Alps, that it is so much culturally alive with so many events which give me opportunities to talk to so many different kinds of persons!

Let me close this post with a beautiful blue vintage car. 

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Read the second part of my post on ISFF focusing on exhibitions and performances

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Vladimiro & Chiara: Art & Love

One the events of the on-going poetry festival (15-31 May 2026) in Schio called Semenze Matte (“Mad seedlings”) is an exhibition titled “Come Un Foglio di Carta” (Like a Sheet of Paper). The on-going exhibition at Palazzo Toaldi Capra in Schio’s city-centre has drawings and prints of the artist Maria Chiara Toni.

At this exhibition I met Vladimiro Elvieri (1950), an artist engraver and companion of Maria Chaira Toni (1950-2025). Vladimiro told me that Chiara, the love of his life for about 47 years, had passed away last year. I spoke to him about their personal and artistic journeys. As we talked, it was clear that speaking about losing Chiara still moved him and made him emotional.

While we talked about their life-stories, it seemed that they had led an active and interesting life, and talking about that would require some more time. Thus, I am planning to meet Vladimiro again, to talk about their artistic experiences about engraving. This first post presents an edited version of our talk on 17 May 2026.

The few art-works presented with this post are by Maria Chaira Toni (click on the images for a bigger view) 

A Conversation with Vladimiro Eliveri 

Sunil: Vladimiro, can we start with your name? This is not a common name in Italy, it sounds more an Eastern European or Russian name.

Vladimiro: It was the name of my uncle, my mother’s brother, he had died in the war and my mother wanted to remember him, that is how I got it. The men in my family, my grandfather and uncle, tended towards the political ideas of Russia of that period, if that had any influence, I don’t know.

Sunil: Tell me about your early life.

Vladimiro: I was born in Schio. My initial education was also in Schio and then I went to the Art Institute of Nove (Bassano). I was married and living in Schio, when in 1978 I met Chiara. It was like being struck by lightening. She was originally from Mantova but was living in Cremona, after 7 months I left Schio and went to live with her. She was working in house furniture sector, and at the same time, she was an artist, designing and painting. I shifted to her studio and that became our home.

Cremona became our base, we were together for forty six and a half year and travelled to different parts of the world as artists. As artists we worked together, discussing every day, we both grew as artists through this interaction, without overpowering the other person. We respected each other as an artist. We had very strong emotional connection with each other and that helped our relationship.

Sunil: Talk to me about your own artistic journey, how did it start?

Vladimiro: My artistic journey started in the nursery school. That was when my first art exhibition was held. I was 4 or 5, I asked myself why I had so many papers full of art, but other children didn’t have them. A nun who came to our school, she said that my designs were beautiful and full of colours. Actually, I was born with the bug of art, and it was the same for Chiara. Art helped us to express our inner liberty through the art.

After 5 years at the Art Institute in Nove, I also went to Paris for some time. Initially, I did a lot of different works to make a living, while making art was in the free time. Most of those works were related to arts and graphics, including making small sculptures, working with silver, and doing stone-cutting.

In 1975, I became an engraver and started making art-incisions when I was working at Torchio-Thiene (a printing press famous for printing of contemporary art) of Armando Martini, who was using different techniques of calcography (Copperplate printing). We became friends. He was printer and also an experimenter of different techniques with new materials. I was putting into practice his inventions as an artist-engraver. I worked with him for 4 years and that had a determining impact on me. With him, I learned how to use the torque for printing. The things I learned with Armando, were useful for me to work as engraver in making incisions in Cremona.

Armando believed in teaching others and I learned this from him. Both, I and Chiara, we also took an active role in teaching young persons about incision-art.

I have about 830 incisions, in different sizes and shapes, some huge ones, some composed of many sheets, some using new techniques, etc. Chiara had made around 320 incisions. Along with incisions, the second artist area of our work is design. Chiara also painted.

Sunil: When you made incisions, were these accompanied by prints?

Vladimiro: Yes of course, for that you need a good printer who understands art. If artists themselves know how to print, it gives them the freedom to decide the kind of results they want from the printing. If an artist who makes incisions, also makes his own prints, it help him in becoming a better incisor. There are many techniques even in printing from incisions, for example, it can be in black and white or it can be in colours. In the recent exhibition of Chiara in Cremona, we had a few colour prints of her work.

Chiara mostly did incisions and paintings, while I also did light-painting, light-design and graphite on Cibachrome (drawing with graphite pencil on photographic-print). I did this because I wanted to interpret the writings of a Polish writer and playwright named Witold Gombrowicz (1904–1969), with whom I felt a deep connection in terms of his essence and thinking. In 1996, I decided to make a series of artworks, a few incisions, mostly light-design, and a few graphite on Cibachrome, around 28 artworks all together, to reinterpret his writings and his themes. I didn’t want to illustrate his words but rather to re-interpret them through my art.

French-American visual artist Man Ray (1890-1976), who was active in Dada and Surrealist movements, had already experimented with light-designs, using a torch-light in the dark, calling them Photograms and Rayographs. In 1949, Pablo Picasso had also collaborated with photographer Gjon Mili to make “light drawings” by making ephemeral figures in the air and fixing them on the film.

For my artworks on the writings of Witold Gombrowicz, I did another variation of this technique. I made light-designs, printed them on Cibachrome and then worked with graphite-tips, so as to bring out the white underneath the black surface. This double work was extraordinary – first there was the light-design, which had movement in the air without a specific or precise idea, it started as a sapling that grew out of me through my gestures in the air. The second part of working on the Cibachrome was more guided, trying to identify the forms hidden inside the light-design, by scratching on the dark surface and bringing out the white lines.

For example, this work called "Cosmo" was based on the title of one of his novels (shows a picture in a catalogue). Once I completed this series, I told about it Francesco Cataluccio (Italian expert of Polish literature for the publisher Feltrinelli, who had curated the publishing of works of Witold Gombrowicz in Italy) and he suggested that I write to the organisers of a festival about Gombrowicz in Poland.

Thus, an exhibition of these works was held at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Radom. It was wonderful because it allowed me and Chiara to participate in that festival, which had theatre groups from different parts of the world to stage his plays. We met many of the persons about whim he had written in his books, it was like a dream for us. For example, there was Alejandro Russovich, the Argentinian philosopher with whom Gombrowicz had lived for 4 years, along with Gombrowicz's wife Rita and many others.

Sunil: Did you travel to other countries with your art?

Vladimiro: With our incisions, we travelled to many art biennale around the world. That was an opportunity to see what others were doing in their countries. Since there were not so many persons in Italy working on incisions, we could exchange experiences at international level.

That helped us to start an Art Biennale in Cremona focusing on incision-art, which was held for 20 years, from 1999 till 2019. Each biennale had 3-4 sections such as guest country, invited international artists, young Italian incision-artists, ex-libris (bookplates) and historical section. Through these, Cremona museum received in gift about 2000 artworks, which is an extraordinary art collection of the best art-incisors from different parts of the world. Some influential persons from the art-world ignored us, others supported us and it was a successful initiative.

An important journey for us when we went to atelier of Henry Goetz (1909-1989) in Paris in 1979. He was a surrealism painter and engraver, a friend of Mirò. While I was working with Martini in Thiene, we had used an engraving technique invented by Goetz but we had modified it, by changing the materials which resulted in more interesting results. I took the prints of those experiments to Goetz in Paris. I was a little apprehensive that he may not like that we have modified his technique, instead he was happy about it. He became a friend.

Another important relationship was with the art-philosopher Dino Formaggio (1914-2008). We met in 1995 and at that time he was already old, but we became good friends and we had very interesting discussions that helped us to grow culturally.

Sunil: So for all this time you were in Cremona, when did you come back to Schio?

Vladimiro: Chiara had retired from her furniture work in 2019. In 2021, we shifted to Schio. In Cremona, her mother was no longer alive while I still had part of my family here. In Cremona we were renting our house and our studio, while I had my mother’s apartment in Schio which was free. We also thought that leaving Cremona, would mean freeing us from her furniture-business related things and to dedicate ourselves only to art. She was very keen that we shift to Schio, even if Cremona was so much closer to Milan, which is the gateway to the international art-world.

We redid my mother’s apartment and we took a studio in Schio, and restarted everything here. But then her illness came back. She had first first been diagnosed in 2000, then it came back in 2018 and was worse. Fortunately, they were able to treat it with chemio and radiotherapy and she became well. That phase lasted till 2023, when it came back again. She died in April 2025.

Chiara was already an artist when we had met. She wanted to do some sculpture also, and was planning to go to a sculpture course in Venice by Francesco Messina (1900-95), but that course was cancelled because there were not enough students for it. She also wanted to learn engraving with Sergio Tarquinio (1925-2026), a famous illustrator and incision-artist in Cremona, but then I arrived in her life and she did incisions with me. However, we also became close friends with Tarquinio.

Her life was busy, she was working, looking after her mother who was ill and yet she participated in my work as well. For example, when I was teaching engraving and had 20-25 students, she used to come to our class after finishing her work and then help me with teaching, and we would continue till mid-night. She was a very special woman.

During the one and a half months of the Biennale, I was conducting workshops in collaboration with the Civic Museum of Cremona, for persons who wanted to learn the art of engraving. Some of the international artists also took part in those courses. We had students from different age groups, from school children to students of art-academies.

Sunil: Thanks Vladimiro for this wonderful talk. This exhibition has only Chiara’s artworks. We need to fix another appointment to talk more about your artwork, as well as about the interesting international connections you had with artists from other countries.

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Riikka Lenkkeri: Depicting Lived Life & Experiences

In May 2026, the well-known artist from Finland Riikka Lenkkeri was in Schio for an art-residency. Thanks to Valeria Bertesina I had an opportunity to spend an evening with her. Here is an edited version of my talk with her - we spoke in Italian and I have translated it into English.

You can check Riikka's artworks at her webpage and Instagram page. (Image left: Riikka working on her painting in Schio - click on the pics for a bigger view)

Introducing Riikka Lenkkeri

During 1990s, Riikka had studied art at the Academia di Belle Arti in Genova, Italy and thus speaks Italian. She now lives and works in Mänttä, about 220 km north of the national capital Helsinki, Finland. Over the last 30 years, she has participated in numerous exhibitions, won many awards and is counted among the prominent artists of Finland.

In the 19th century important paper-mills were setup in Mänttä - The Serlachius paper mill. Those paper mills are still active. Today, Mänttä is called the art city of Finland, it hosts an annual art festival, and has 2 museums – art Museum Serlachius Manor & Museum Serlachius Headquarters (museum in the G.A. Serlachius paper company building), where regular art events are organised.

Since Riikka was worried about completing her painting, we talked while she was painting and I was sitting nearby watching her and listening to her.

Her painting was huge, going from the bottom to the top of the whole wall, probably more than 3 metres tall. It had 3 figures, a central figure of a woman with her head on the cushion at the top, covered by a blanket, a male figure on her left and a third male figure, near their feet, lying accross. All the three were sleeping and the top figure was only drawn in lines.

Talking With Riikka Lenkkeri

Riikka: If you don’t mind, I will continue working while we talk. Yesterday, I spent the whole day going to and coming back from Genova, where I wanted to meet some friends. I came back late at night. Today is Saturday and on Tuesday morning I will go back to Finland, so I have little time and a lot of work to do to finish this painting.

Sunil: Sure. Let us start with the place where you live in Finland. What kind of place is it?

Riikka: Mänttä is a very small place. It has artists, museums, art festivals and art related events. It is not along the way to somewhere famous, you come to Mänttä because you want to visit it. In some ways it is like Schio, it is an industrial town, important for its paper mills. Slowly people, especially young people were leaving and going to bigger towns, but the presence of art museums and the organisation of art festivals and art related events has helped to make it known and bring some people back to live there, it has helped in bringing life to the town.

Sunil: Tell me about this painting (left). I can see that it is about sleeping persons and I know that you have already done many paintings about sleeping people. Is that because in sleep we drop our masks, we are no longer posing, we are more exposed and vulnerable?

Riikka: This painting has a mother with her two sons, all three sleeping in one bed. I am interested in exploring the corporeality of the human body in my art and especially exploring it through sleep. I like real people in my art, people who can be fat or curvy, or old and tired, people who are being themselves and not putting on a show.

I prefer using oil colours but I can also experiment. In this painting, I am using acrylic colours as well as colours that are used in buildings, I bought these here from a local shop that sells paints for buildings.

Sunil: As a child did you also go to sleep with your parents?

Riikka: Yes, I did. There were four of us. I have an elder brother, I am the second and I have two younger brothers. When we were young, all four of us wanted to be in the bed with our parents but there was place only for one of us. So the first one who managed to get in the bed, stayed there, the other three had to sleep near the bed. There were thick carpets and sleeping on them was comfortable.

I did the same with my twins. They are grown up now but when they were young, both of them used to come to sleep in our bed. As they moved so much during the night, disturbing our sleep, sometimes my husband used to get up and shift to another bed.

Sunil: Is Mänttä also the place where you grew up?

Riikka: No, my father was a doctor and he was changing towns. I was born in Lapland. Then, when I was four years old, we moved to Mänttä, my youngest brother was born there.

Sunil: You did your art studies in Academia Legustica di Belle Arti in Genova, in north-wast Italy. How did that happen?

Riikka: From my childhood, I had decided that I am going to be an artist. I completed the high school diploma in an art school. After that I absolutely wanted to study in an art school outside Finland. It was in 1990s (1990-95) and I was fortunate that during that period they were promoting students to go to other countries in Europe. I got a loan for studying in Italy and I also received other support, so I decided to study at the Academia in Genova.

The main problem was that when I arrived in Genova, I did not know Italian. I was given a room and a few months to study the language. When they examined me, I think that my Italian was still not very good but they accepted me.

There in the Academy I studied a lot of different things, including the painting techniques from  the 15th to 17th centuries.

Sunil: After completing the Academy, did you start working as an artist or you did other work? Do you remember your first artwork that you sold?

Riikka: Yes, I started to work as an artist. When I was in school, there used to be events and exhibitions where the students could showcase their artworks and I had already done plenty of it. During those exhibitions, I think that I had already sold some of my artworks, and now I don’t remember which was my first artwork that was sold.

Sunil: Tell me about your husband. I have read that he was  modelling for you, is that true?

Riikka: Actually Sampsa is a photographer and film-maker. He has modelled for me many times. Often, male artists have used female models, painting them and sometimes having relationships with them, thinking of them as their muses.

I like the idea of reversing the gaze and look at a man as my muse and to look at him as a model.

When I was studying in Genova, I used to think that I will live in Italy, I will not go back to Finland. Instead, I was in Finland and I met Sampsa and so all my plans changed. He is from Mänttä, his family was closely linked to the  Serlachius paper mill, his uncle was an engineer there, while his father was a dentist. They had this big house in  Mänttä, it was for 2 families, now we have renovated it and modified it.

(Note: On Riikka’s website, there is an interesting piece of writing by Sampsa Virkajärvi about how he feels about being seen as model and how he can observe Riikka during that process)

Sunil: How is it being married to another artist? And your children, are they also artists?

Riikka: Actually Sampsa is very good, he shares all the work at home, otherwise with two children, it would have been difficult for me to be an artist.

My twins, when they were young, they tried making all the different kinds of art, but they were not interested in being an artist. One of them is working in a factory and the other one is at university, studying mathematics.

Sunil: Tell me about your influences?

Riikka: The artist who has been the biggest influence on me is the 15th century Italian artist Piero della Francesca (1412-92). I saw two of his paintings at the national gallery in London and they had a tremendous impact on me – the Nativity and the Baptism of Christ.

In the Nativity painting, it is the figure of Joseph that interested me (below). He is an old man, sitting and looking away from the viewers, his right leg is bent at the knee and placed over his left leg and we can see the sole of his foot. When I saw it, I understood how the physicality and the position of the figure is shown, in a way that showcases deeper aspects of the figure's lived life and experiences, not in an idealised way but as an ordinary human with his body.

In the Baptism painting (below), it is the figure of the man behind who is removing his shirt. Once again, its physicality struck me.

Those two paintings had very strong influence on me. That is what I want in my work, the physicality of our human bodies and body language that gestures to more complex interpretations about the subject. 

Sunil: This explanation gives us a key to look at your work and see what you want to transmit in your art. Thanks for sharing all this information and all the time you have given me. 

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Minotaur Myth To Talk About Diversity

The Greek myth of Minotaur was about the Minoan civilisation in the Crete island, around 3000 BCE.

In May this year, a theatre group (Campus Company) of Schio's Civic Theatre brought together the students from the different local schools to create a theatre performance on the myth of Minotaur, to talk about the themes of diversity and inclusion. (Click on the images for a bigger view)

This post is about that theatre performance called "Minotauro della Diversità" (Minotaur of Diversity).

Minoans and the Minotaur Myth 

Minoan was a Bronze age civilisation on the Crete island in the Aegean sea.

The myth says that king Mino didn't worship properly to the God Poseidon and the angered God made his queen fall in love with a bull (Taurus). Thus the queen gave birth to a ferocious half-man, half-bull creature called Minotaur, who was closed inside a labyrinth. King Mino asked Athenians to send human sacrifice for Minotaur. An Athenian young man called Theseus offered to be the sacrifice for Minotaur. He killed Minotaur and was able to escape the labyrinth with the help of a string given to him by the king's daughter who loved him.

Minotaur As a Symbol of Diversity

The symbolism of Minotaur for a child with disability seems very obvious. Manny civilisations had superstitions which saw disabled or diverse children as inauspicious and harbingers of bad luck.

In Italy, over the past couple of decades, there has been large scale migration and today the children of the migrants form a significant part of the students in Schio's schools. Thus, using the Minotaur's myth as the theme of a theatre performance was important to raise questions about and to discuss the issues of diversity and inclusion.

Civic Theatre of Schio

 The Civic Theatre of Schio is managed by a Foundation and it has different projects to promote community engagement and participation in its activities. The theatre was built in early 20th century through an initiative of industrialist Alessandro Rossi with active contribution of the citizens. Over the last few years, it has been repaired and restored to its old glory.

Apart from theatre performance, its activities include Campus Lab (to promote theatre among children and young adults) and Dance Well (dance therapy for persons with Parkinson and elderly persons).

Performance of Minotauro Della Diversità

The performance was the result of a workshop for the students and was directed by Ketti Grunchi (Piccionaia company) and Delfina Pevere. Around 30 students from different schools of Schio took part in it.

The stage set-up was simple and minimalist. A square wooden frame with curtains represented the palace or queen's room. Stones placed on the floor represented the labyrinth. All the actors had plain dark-grey pants and T-shirts, and the addition of a crown or a white mask denoted the king and Minotaur. Long pieces of curtain like materials held on the two sides, made the sea-waves. Persons on the stage were accompanied by readers, who sat on the stairs and provided commentary.

The images used with this post will give you some idea about the performance.

Conclusions

While watching the performance, I was thinking that I would have loved to take part in something like this when I was in school. We did do some plays in School, but they were really basic. While this performance with experienced play-writes and director, technical support though lights and sound, and the kind of preparation that must have gone into making it, would have been at a completely different level.

I think that it is wonderful and we are incredibly lucky that even in our tiny town of Schio, we have such a theatre and similar initiatives which contribute in stimulating creation for the students and a better quality of life for all of us residents.

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