A giant ball made of newspaper sheets will roll along Biella’s streets, being passed from one student’s hands to another’s. It is the Sphere of Newspapers, not a static installation but a performative action which will engage the students of liceo Sella and ITC Bona with the work conceived by Michelangelo Pistoletto. Information and communication will be represented and animated in an innovative way: this time the Walking Sculpture has been assembled by the Biellese students, in the course of an educational process started at the beginning of the month. On 1st April, in fact, the Learning Environments and Schools Office organized and held a practical and theoretical meeting leading to the realization of the Walking Sculpture. Besides creating the one-metre-wide sphere covered with a collage of local newspapers, the about 40 participating students learnt about the peculiarities of the Sphere of Newspapers and the works of the Biellese artist, in order to better understand the contents. Behind the scenes of the event are teachers Alberto Fontanella, Denise de Rocco (both also Rebirth/Third Paradise ambassadors) and Nadia Landrino.
After that first phase, this morning the action will start with the performance Walking Sculpture, which will see the students from the two schools pushing the Sphere of Newspapers from liceo Sella to ITC Bona, along the streets of the city centre. Here are the details of the route: the start is at 11 from the artistic high school, Parco Arequipa, via Cavalieri Vittorio Veneto, Largo Marinai d’Italia, via Don Luigi Sturzo, via delle Rogge, via Aldo Moro, via Lamarmora, Giardini Zumaglini, via Italia, via San Filippo, p.zza Martiri della Libertà, via Cavour. The students of the two classes, 5thF and 5thH, accompanied by their teachers and external referents, will walk this route pushing the rolling sphere all the way to the branch of the Bona Institute at via Cavour 4 (the arrival is scheduled for 12.30).
Once arrived at the ITC Bona, the students of the liceo Sella will symbolically pass the baton to the students from the other school, who will then take the lead and roll the work for the second part of the route, along via Italia to the Bona institute’s main site, where the sphere will be placed in the lecture hall. The conference Social Network and Journalism with our editorial staff is scheduled for 2 pm: Luca Deias (Cittadellarte’s social media and Journal) will talk about the changes digital journalism has brought to information, starting from the themes conveyed by the Sphere of Newspapers, in an analysis ranging from paper communication to the open web. The focus is on new media, participatory journalism and the evolution of the audience: less and less detached readers getting closer and closer to the work of the reporter.
Ruggero Poi, from the Learning Environments and Schools Office, told us about the peculiarities of the Sphere of Newspapers. “It is an inter-identitiarian object creating a connection between people, groups called to action by the sphere-device. The object is much more than a work of art, – he claims – it involves action, gestures pervading it with meaning, turning it into a ‘formative/transformative movement’ of the art system of the late ’60s and a useful tool for today’s educational system. The sculpture, in fact, recalls the universally known game of ball, in which the challenging element consists in directing the free movement of the sphere through a research of sense, free will and perspective, expressed in the gesture.
The Sphere of Newspapers – concludes Ruggero Poi – is therefore a performance, a theatrical action, the condition of being completely present and integrated, body, emotions and brain; it also stresses the value of physicality and duration in relationships and in learning. Here, the motivation is absolutely intrinsic in the person who ‘plays’. The movement, the challenging object, the relationship with the classmates are the emotional foundation on which the learning process is built. We are pushing the Sphere of Newspapers in an exercise of ‘random narration’, managed by the awareness of a continuously improvised narrative, generated by questions and answers bouncing between students and teachers”.
