ISSUE #27

BACKGROUND

IN THIS ISSUE:

AMBRA
CASTAGNETTI

FRANCESCO
VEZZOLI

ANDREA
MAUTI

MARINA
ABRAMOVIĆ

VENERUS

LOÏC
KOUTANA

BJÖRK

JEAN
TINGUELY

LE DIOUCK

Amid the storms we find ourselves navigating, the debate around freedom seems to always be the most pressing. Are our actions truly voluntary, or are they mediated by hidden forces that lead us to act in ritualistic, compulsive ways? Is violence born out of the pressure that limits our choices?
Here, it’s not about choice, but rather about varying levels of fulfilling one’s primary needs. These needs, increasingly, raise the bar of expectations and push us toward the desire for possession. To be free today, from want, we are asked to become slaves to it.
So how do we proceed? Our background, education, and the search for beauty and justice — rooted in an ethical vision — can serve as guiding principles for our freedom. In this issue, we explore, together with our protagonists, the visions that drive and inspire them.
For Damien Jalet, dance is his expressive freedom, a force that has always shaped his life. He performs his story with the body, alongside his partner Aimilios Arapoglou and shares his thoughts and reflections in a memorable conversation with his friend, Marina Abramović. Franco-Senegalese musician Le Diouck reminds us that embracing one’s ancestral culture is not a threat to the West, but rather an enrichment. His vision of contemporary fashion blends eclectic influences with tribal elements, offering a distinctive mix of modernity and tradition. Italian musician Venerus, behind a mask, finds his identity in creative disguise. Ambra Castagnetti, a young but highly acclaimed artist, transcends corporeality through anatomical relics and anthropological and tactile deformities. Luca Guadagnino’s film Queer, on the life of William Burroughs, the cursed poet of the Beat Generation, takes us back to our magazine’s archives, where we find the extraordinary words of an imaginary interview written by our late contributor and beloved critic, Pasquale Leccese. Other visual explorations by visionaries, through the use of iconic accessories, span from the extreme to the conservative, yet all share the same obsession: the need to break free from conformity.
And so, to be free today — from want, which is no longer tied solely to mere survival — manifests as a primary need to feed one’s soul, mind, and dreams. Yet, none of this can be achieved without peace. “The third is freedom from want — which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants — everywhere in the world.”
This is the third of the Four Freedoms pronounced by U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in his 1941 State of the Union Address. A deceptive paradox, it was the prelude to the end of U.S. non-interventionism, justifying the wars to come — wars that have yet to cease.
Freedom from want means opening oneself to different cultures, dreaming of a humanity that is omnivorous, nourishing itself with the knowledge of others — not to consume them, but to learn to respect them. Perhaps thinking about what is good and beautiful is no longer enough. But perhaps it is necessary for humanity, to avoid falling back into the unmet primary need for survival.

SILVIA MOTTA

Don’t Repeat Yourself

“But mushrooms for me aren’t like “tree roots”, but they’re fun, right? They’re psychedelic and they’re bubbly and they pop up everywhere. They’re mostly traveling through the whole forest. I want to get in contact with the earth, take my shoes and socks off and put my toes in the soil and like sit on the ground and just like mmmmmmmm murmur just like get grounded. Nature hasn’t gone anywhere. It is all around us, all the planets, galaxies, and so on. We are nothing in comparison. We’ve been ejecting our spores. Seedlings and sprouts are shot into the ground. Its nerves spread like wings. At mycelium speed into the atmosphere. There are spores everywhere.”

BJÖRK

WOLE FESTIVAL

AMBRA CASTAGNETTI

JEAN TINGUELY

LE DIOUCK