Events + ESTA BIEN a Bergamo

23 February – 24 March 2008 Bergamo – Domus Alexandrina (via S. Alessandro n. 35, at the Church of S. Alessandro in Colonna)

From 22 February to 24 March 2008, an exhibition entitled ¿ESTÁ BIEN? will be held at the chapel of Domus Alexandrina in Bergamo. The exhibition, organized by Celim Bergamo, the Diocesan Missionary Centre of Bergamo and the Cultural Association DI+, aims at presenting an unprecedented reflection on the culture of child labour in Bolivia, focussed on the alternative of formation, in support of the Bergamo Celim projects in South American. Installations, videos and texts mix together with the creativity of art, places, voices and faces, introducing the public to a new educational model proposed by the Nats organization (Ninos y adolescents trabajadores). Nats is an organization composed of children and teenage workers who unite to claim their rights to a dignified job.
The exhibition combines texts, photographs, videoclips and artistic installations, which relate the daily life of children and adolescent workers – in work, school, family, friends and play – presenting their difficulties and aspirations through the stories, voices and faces that the journalist Elena Catalfamo, photoreporter Giovanni Diffidenti and artist Laura Morelli met during the month spent in the city of Potosí in Bolivia, in the company of the Nats organization.

In the first video Elena Catalfamo, journalist, uses the evocative power of words to trace the stories of children and adolescent workers in a social context taking its first steps towards an economical development that will guarantee an improved health and education system to the young generation.
The stories presented in the videos are collected in the booklet ¿ESTÁ BIEN?, published by Libri Aparte, a tool for reflection that can be furthered in a space of the exhibition dedicated to reading. In the overall accounts that describe the working places and the society of Potosì, there are stories of every day life written by the children themselves, which relate their lives and dreams, how they live, and their opinions on child labor.

In the second video the photoreporter Giovanni Diffidenti documents the daily life of children in black and white images: from the cemetery to the bus station, and in market squares where they shine shoes or sell plastic bags. The images then accompany the visitor into the homes to meet the families, and into the children’s schools, during moments of play.

The artist Laura Morelli, on the other hand, asked the children to realize a spontaneous production through photographic images and video clips. The environments characterizing their lives are depicted, from work to play, and school to family. From this project, involving 200 children in Potosì, an articulated video was compiled where the children speak about themselves in an extremely personal form and content.
In all three works the soundtrack in the background consists in brief interviews, work noises, and environmental sounds, all registered in Potosí.
In the chapel of Domus Alexandrina the exhibition is completed by the installation Abarcas, a carpet realized by Laura Morelli from black sandals, made out of the recycled rubber of truck tyres, worn by the poor families and many of the Nats children in Potosí.

PRESS CONFERENCE: Tuesday 19 February, 5.30 p.m., Celim Conference Room and Diocesan Missionary Centre, via Conventino 8

EXHIBITION INAUGURATION: Friday 22 February, 6.30 p.m.
Buffet with characteristic food and drinks from Potosí served by the Bolivian community of the Parish of San Lazzaro

Open to the public:
Monday-Saturday 4-8 p.m.
Sundays 10 a.m. - 1 p.m. and 4-8 p.m.
Open for school visits:
Saturdays 10 a.m. - 1 p.m.

SIDE/COLLATERAL INITIATIVES:
DI+ FOCUS: meeting with the organizers
5 March, 9 p.m., LEMIE spa, (loc. Ravarolo), viale Artigianato 4, Verdello (BG)
ROUND TABLE: Adolescents and labour
7 March, 2.30-6.00 p.m., Casa del Giovane (Spala degli Angeli), via Gavazzeni n. 13.
THEATRICAL SHOW "PACHAMAMA - SUS HIJOS" by and featuring Candelaria Romero
13 March, 9 p.m., Church of Sant’Alessandro in Colonna