The large rights mural created by the artist collective Orticanoodles and the OrMe – Ortica Memoria association was inaugurated on Saturday morning in Milan, adding another masterpiece to Milan’s first open-air museum with this new work. “The mural is a tribute to 200 extraordinary, visionary people who had the courage to question social conventions and who wrote the history of human and civil rights with passion, commitment and determination. The work also recalls the faces of migrants who have lost their rights “lives in the tragic shipwreck of Lampedusa on October 3, 2013, on the days of the tenth anniversary,” explained the association, which promotes urban renewal through the creation of cultural, artistic , promotes leisure and educational activities.
The mural was created on the facade of a building in Via Ortica 1. The work is an explosion of color with a strong visual impact: a large rainbow flag envelops the building, from which the faces of people who have decided not to stay look out indifferently and have at different times advocated for a fairer, freer and more dignified world for all. Thus, in Ortica, the smallest district of Milan, the history of the rights and their long journey comes to life, in a work reminiscent of “The Fourth Estate” by Giuseppe Pellizza da Volpedo, where a compact and lively crowd celebrates their joy, but also Sacrifice and hard work.
“The rights represented correspond to those of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted 75 years ago by the United Nations General Assembly and made iconic through the symbolic portraits of two hundred people who have left their mark with important achievements in various fields. From the right to… self-determination of peoples, minorities, women, the right to personal identity and then the fundamental pillars such as the right to health, justice, education and freedom of expression, including animal rights and environmental justice,” said a note from OrMe.
So here are the faces of Altiero Spinelli, who 80 years ago in Milan, together with other former prisoners and prisoners of the fascist regime, founded the European Federalist Movement; of Franca Viola, the first woman in Italy to reject shotgun marriage and with her courage change the penal code; by Masha Amini, a year after her murder by the Tehran police, and by the protest movement for women’s rights in Iran. And again the portraits of Amalia Ercoli Finzi, Don Virginio Colmegna, Franca Rame, Michela Murgia, Mariasilvia Spolato. Many famous Milanese personalities are depicted: among them Cesare Castiglioni, founder of the Italian Red Cross, Riccardo Bauer, architect of the rebirth of the Humanitarian Society of Milan, the educator Giuseppina Pizzigoni, creator of the “renewed school” teaching method. , Elda Mazzocchi Scarzella, who founded an aid center in Milan for mothers arriving from German camps with children conceived in captivity, provided assistance to veterans and founded the Mother-Child Village. But Gianni Delle Foglie, a pioneer of homosexuality in Italy together with his partner Ivan Dragoni, also caused a stir in 1992 with a symbolic wedding on the Piazza della Scala. And then Alessandra Kustermann, the first female chief physician at the Mangiagalli Clinic in Milan and founder of the first anti-violence center and an emergency room for victims of sexual and domestic violence in 1996, made history. And again the historical chaplain of the Beccaria juvenile prison, Don Gino Rigoldi, the founders of Emergency, Gino Strada and Teresa Sarti, Giovanna Cavazzoni, founder of the Vidas association, which offers free social and health assistance to terminally ill patients, Samantha Cristoforetti, Franca Valeri, Bruno Munari and others.
The mural is also a hymn to freedom of expression through the symbolic faces of journalists such as Ilaria Alpi and Miran Hrovatin, Anna Politkovskaja, Walter Tobagi, Giancarlo Siani, Giuseppe Fava and activists such as Patrick Zaki, Vittorio Arrigoni and Guido Puletti. There is the right to justice, with the faces of Ambassador Luca Attanasio, the forensic doctor Cristina Cattaneo, director of Labanof (Laboratory of Forensic Anthropology and Odontology of the University of Milan), which deals with the identification of migrants killed in shipwrecks in the Mediterranean died and explain the fight against human rights violations through science. And then the many exemplary personalities who fought for justice, from Judge Rocco Chinnici, who founded the anti-mafia pool, to Giorgio Perlasca, who saved thousands of Jewish Hungarians from extermination by the Nazis, to Tina Merlin, whose Tenacity she highlighted the truth about the Vajont dam disaster. And again the right to health, with the portrait of Carlo Urbani, the Italian doctor who first identified the Sars virus and sacrificed his own life to prevent a pandemic; the psychiatrist Franco Basaglia, who revolutionized the mental health treatment system and restored dignity and value to patients; and the first Nobel Peace Prize winner Henry Dunant.
And the right to education and the promotion of a rights-based children’s culture, with the faces of Eglantyne Jebb, founder of Save the Children and author of the first Charter of Children’s Rights, of Ersilia Bronzini Majno, founder of the Mariuccia kindergarten. Don Lorenzo Milani and Malala Yousafzai. Right up to the right to climate justice and a healthy and sustainable environment, which was recognized by the United Nations Human Rights Council in a recent resolution. From the mother of the environmental movement, Rachel Carson, to the young activists Greta Thumberg and Autumn Peltier, to the Nobel Prize winner Giorgio Parisi, the researchers Federica Bertocchini, who discovered the plastic-eating caterpillar, and Barbara Mazzolai, director of bio-inspired robotics at the Italian Institute of Technology.
“The ‘Rights Mural’ tells the story of the commitment of men and women who have spent their lives strengthening social and civil rights, thereby contributing to the history and development of our society’s civic and civic consciousness. It was not easy.” Select the 200 faces that will make up the mural and together will create a real “map” of rights: a work of art that will make the OrMe open-air museum even more valuable and allow us to share another two hundred exemplary and inspiring stories for us and for them to tell “There are many young people who follow the artistic projects of Ortica Memoria with interest,” explained the mayor of the municipality of Milan, Anna Scavuzzo, who was present at the inauguration.
“Today we open a beautiful work of public choral art that tells the story of human and civil rights through imitators,” reiterated the Councilor for Culture of the City of Milan, Tommaso Sacchi, “. Sometimes we preserve the memory of those who have invested their lives.” Even at the price of losing it, it is a civic obligation to defend those rights that make every woman and every man a free person and a duty for represent any public administration. I would therefore like to thank the artist collective Orticanoodles and the OrMe Ortica Memoria Association for also activating the neighborhood community in the creation of this “participatory” mural. I am sure that the message it brings will be deeply felt not only in the neighborhood but throughout the city.”
“In the face of this human size, we feel small. As I look at this large mural dedicated to the right that we are inaugurating today, I would like to invite you to look up and be inspired to be better people: this is for me the meaning of “This work, which will be added to the Ortica open-air museum and will represent a source of pride for our city due to its value and the testimony of the many faces depicted here,” emphasized the President of Municipality 3 of Milan. Caterina Antola. “75 years after the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, we wanted to remember the relevance of this fundamental recognition and add an important piece to the OrMe open-air museum with the ‘Mural of Rights’. The work is also a tribute to many, many Milanese people who, in different eras, have spent their lives guaranteeing access to universal rights for the weakest and most vulnerable: with their portraits we wanted to remember their stories, which for us great example and inspiration. Many associations and organizations from the third sector also passionately participated in the design of the mural: Together with them, we want to send a message by remembering these stories and draw attention to the current relevance of these rights, which are still represented as a compass today, in a historical moment in which wars, climate crisis and episodes of intolerance against minorities risk clouding their memory,” said Serafino Sorace, President of the OrMe – Ortica Memoria association.
Still, not everyone liked the mural. Franca Caffa, historical protagonist of the struggle for the right to housing in Milan and one of the faces depicted, formulated the invitation to participate in the inauguration and asked to be removed from the work. “Why did Ortica Memoria not consult her before inserting her portrait in the mural, because to her the defense of rights seems incompatible with the members of this Council, which she blames for the current situation in Milan, and because she does not does? “I want to be associated with this form of regeneration through murals that property companies like so much,” he said.