2021 marks the 700th anniversary of the death of the Italian poet, philosopher & statesman, Dante Alighieri. I'm organizing a commemorative event on 3 Dec 2021 at my university that will feature a student panel discussing "how and why we read Dante today", and an experiential, collaborative, performative, artwork, drawing on Dante's magnum opus, The Divine Comedy. The artwork combines passages from the poem with creative responses generated by participants in the form of drawings, poems, memoir, and other expressions. The Divine Comedy takes place in an imagined literary "afterlife," but fundamentally meditates on the physical & spiritual traces we leave in this world through our interactions with our families, friends, and societies.
Participants in the project will add their responses to the text, prepared on a large (6' x 2') canvas. Prompts will include the following:
• Draw one of the sinners or saints or monsters represented in Dante's poetry
• Draw a symbol of hope, of sorrow, or of suffering
• Write a poem or a story in response to Dante or one of the drawings you see
• Write a memorial tribute to a loved one or someone you admire
• Write an apology for a wrong you've done
• Write a note of forgiveness for a wrong done to you
• Leave a handprint where you see yourself
• Write an aspirational goal (spiritual or physical)
• Write a thank you note expressing gratitude for something.
Dante's work stands at the intersection of social science, arts, and humanities. The project embraces diverse responses to his ideas about justice, rendered in Dante's exploration of sin and redemption through the three parts of The Divine Comedy: Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso. The project's immersive experience supports the mission of the University of Minnesota-Duluth, College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences by encouraging participants to place their own stories in the context of Dante's narrative about the human capacity to learn from the past, understand the present, and shape the future.
...so here's the prepped canvas (which is a bit hard to make out in this small-scale photo). Participants will use bleach to write/draw on it - that lifts the ink creating something of a ghostly effect. I'll show some details from it that show off the calligraphy better in another post. And I'll post what it all turns out looking like after the event.