Alessandro, your work often blends activism and performance. What inspired “La caja de concreto”, and how does it speak to the experiences of political prisoners or those who resist oppressive regimes?
“La Caja de Concreto” was born from the meeting with Lorent and from the long conversations during which we addressed the theme of the importance of democracy, freedom and poetry in our lives, and during which we explored the importance of creating global awareness regarding the existence of so many kidnapped and prisoners throughout the world, often forgotten, who live every day in inhuman and degrading conditions and whose fate depends on us, on our degree of interest in their cases, in their lives, in their freedom which, ultimately, is also ours.
The performance speaks both to all citizens who suffer the oppression of totalitarian regimes and also to all those who are perpetrating oppression and supporting it, the performance speaks clearly and says in no uncertain terms that freedom has no limit, no end, and that, no matter how hard someone can try to repress our need for freedom, freedom will be reborn within us every day, and will allow us to continue to stand against injustice and oppression.
There was a moment during the rehearsals when observing Lorent on the stage I understood that we were no longer just talking about his imprisonment, but we were telling his desire for freedom, his capacity for resistance and his courage that are certainly able to inspire many people and invites them to resist and continue to stand for freedom and democracy.
You’re both engaging with a new generation of human rights defenders here in Venice. What do you hope they take away from your presence and your work?
This is a very difficult moment, in which the points of reference are rapidly changing, they are being erased. Here then the right and wrong binomial and our system of moral and constitutional values is continuously questioned and questioned.
Art and theater can undoubtedly rebalance the system, speak to our hearts, free our souls, and for a moment bring back clarity and hope. Theater is a prism and breaks the polarity, it allows us to listen to the world deeply for an hour or a little more.
The invitation to all the new human rights defenders is to keep clear in their hearts and minds their system of values, the set of all the principles in which they deeply believe and then seek, with imagination and creativity, the most creative solutions to ensure that rights, inclusion and democratic and free global citizenship are possible every day for the greatest number of human beings.
Art has long been a vehicle for protest and change. How do you see theatre—and your collaboration in particular—contributing to the broader human rights movement? What gives you hope and drives you to continue your work?
Art allows us to be reborn every day. Through the exploration of human dynamics, of the opposing and cooperative plots that exist between human beings, we find the reasons of the soul and its profound movements in the world.
The world and humanity move in depth, the real plots of life move in depth, and that is where the theater takes us, in that hidden area where we discover that we have more hope, more strength, more courage, more love of life than we ever imagined.
This depth, this profound sense allows us to communicate with the entire human rights movement, with institutions, with civic movements, with young people, and to communicate in that area of life where fear feels stronger but leaves room for courage, and all its magnificent forms and expressions that allow us to survive.
The search for human rights is therefore a continuous movement that, like the theater, will never end, because it is grafted into that deep and peaceful place that exists in every human being, the place of conscience where love for creation, for the world and for its inhabitants is grafted.
The path for human rights will therefore always be full of hope, because life was designed to protect and survive and not for fratricide, lowering one’s arms would be too unnatural, and it will not happen so easily. We are alive, therefore, and we continue step by step for ourselves and for others.
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