Performance 5’

In collaboration with the students of the Humanities Department of the University of Trieste

ph Ela Bialkowska, OKNOstudio

The project involved making a banner out of students' used clothing, African and Arab fabrics, which Montini buys in the Barriera di Milano neighbourhood in Turin, where he lives and works: a neighbourhood that is a crossroads of many different cultures and traditions. Excerpts of the Italian flag run across the banner. During the residency, the artist reflects on the socio-political dynamics of our society, in a border context such as Trieste. Taking the famous words ‘I am Giorgia, I am a woman, I am a mother, I am Italian, I am a Christian. You will not take this away from me! You won't take it away from me!’ by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni during the 19 October 2019 rally in Piazza San Giovanni in Rome. Reflecting on the sense of citizenship, i.e. of belonging to a country and enjoying its protections, which is independent of belonging to a given religion, a specific sexual orientation and identity, Montini stitched together a version of the same sentence with a more attentive, fair and adherent look at reality, even before the law itself. The students* worked with the artist and his assistant Mattia Ozzy B. to make the banner.

During the manual phase of the realisation of the work, the students were asked to provide their own declination of Meloni's slogan anonymously, by means of cards, so as to avoid any involuntary coming out. In front of the central building of the University of Trieste in Piazzale Europa, Montini uses the tapestry to realise a performance in which, while the students* hold up the tapestry, the artist proclaims the various declinations of the students*. A language close to that used by protesters during parades constantly demanding rights in front of the powerful palaces of power.