Cvtà street art festival, Civitacampomarano Italy 2016

Six Internationally known street artists were invited to change the landscape of Civitacampomarano (pronounced “Cvtà in local dialect) for the first edition of ‘Cvtà festival‘. Civitacampomarano can be found in the Italian region of Molise, it is a small town with just 400 mostly elderly inhabitants! The festival ran from Thursday, April 21 until Sunday, April 24, 2016.

The festival began with a simple invitation to street artist Alice Pasquini to come to Civitacampomarano and paint the walls of the historical center, which had long been abandoned. The inhabitants grew affection for the artwork and street art became a conduit for the rediscovery of the area. With the new interest in street art Alice directed the first street art festival in the region.

“I painted on old doors to remind us of what is no longer.Many of the beautiful houses are empty now and over time so many people have left Civitacampomarano that the current population is only a little over four hundred inhabitants.For me it wasn’t just any town, but my grandfather’s birthplace. The interesting thing is that Ylenia did not know this when she wrote me the initial email.” Alice Pasquini

Street artists invited to wake up this abandoned area were: Biancoshock (Italy), David de la Mano (Spain), Pablo S. Herrero (Spain), Hitnes (Italy), ICKS (Italy), and UNO (Italy).

Biancoshock provocative idea was to highlight todays society need for social media and technology in a town that did not use any…

“Civitacampomarano is a small village in the province of Campobasso with just 400 souls, mainly elderly. In this village, rich in folk traditions, Internet is a partially unknown world: mobile phones have difficulty working and the data connection is practically nonexistent.
The provocative idea is to show that these virtual functions, considered by the vast majority of the population as necessary and essential to everyday life, also exist in the country, where the connection is hard to reach: this is a sort of Internet “in real life” able to demonstrate that in traditions and popular culture these instruments, in other ways, have always existed and have allowed people and families to have cultural exchanges, meeting at the bar and living the town’s streets.” Biancoshock

The four days of street painting and collateral events were planned in conjunction with the festival, from guided visits with local schools to an evening of street food, where the community opens their doors to cook typical dishes from the area. Hiking trips and a workshop to connect space and community, organised by the Legambiente non-profit further helped animate the village. Acclaimed musician DJ Gruff to Civitacampomarano, where he met the inhabitants and used the music of their past to create a new soundtrack.

Alice Pasquini acted as the art director for the festival, ‘Rome photo blog’ coordinated the festival and the Pro Loco “Vincenzo Cuoco” of Civitacampomarano acted as the organising body.

Civitacampomarano looks like an old beautiful traditional town and with the influx of street artists, doing what they do best, it will hopefully make this town buzzing with new interests once again.

Photos courtesy of Alessia di Risio / Biancoshock FB (How Ironic!)

 

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