Maison de la Paix || Casa Universale delle Culture (EN)

 

CASA UNIVERSALE DELLE CULTURE

The Maison de la Paix - Casa Universale delle Culture is a place strongly representative, in which will convey the knowledge of the different identities and cultures, structuring permanently initiatives aimed at the spreading of peace, necessary for the shared development.

The Maison de la Paix - Casa Universale delle Culture (MdP) is a project conceived by Michele Capasso, approved by many Countries and international organizations. It is an architecture that keeps the memory of many Peace activities which created history, often more than the wars, but it is – above all – a space "to build” Peace.

The architectonical complex has an important symbolic worth: it represents the Countries of the World engaged in the Peace process and the Countries victim of the conflicts.

Proposed by the Fondazione Mediterraneo with the Maison des Alliances – together with the main adherent organizations, such as the Mediterranean Parliamentary Assembly, the League of Arab States, the "Anna Lindh" Euro-Mediterranean Foundation and others, the MdP represents a referent point for all the ones who dedicate their lives to peace.

The symbol of the MdP is the "Totem for Peace", an artwork by the Italian sculptor Mario Molinari which the Fondazione Mediterraneo is promoting all around the world, creating the network of the "Cities for Peace".

The first seat of the MdP was inaugurated on the 14th of June 2010 (Maison de la Paix - Casa Universale delle Culture) in the historical building of the Grand Hotel de Londres in Naples.

The action of the Maison de la Paix - Casa Universale delle Culture aims at improving the main activities of the "Universal Forum of Cultures" in: Barcelona (2004), Monterrey (2007), Valparaiso (2010) and Naples (2013).

The Maison de la Paix performs most of the initiatives jointly with the Maison de la Méditerranée.

 

During the visit with the Albanian boys in the BUNKART, the place where the dictatorship of Enver Hoxha is witnessed that has overshadowed Albania from the rest of the world for over a quarter of a century, the president Michele Capasso left a dedication in the guest book a letter in which he retraces the history of Albania and in particular the period under the leadership of the dictator who died at 85 years after admitting the lives of millions of Albanians, killing or imprisoning those who opposed his political design.
"An old Albanian - wrote Capasso - tells me that after 30 years of flattening you do not know what you lose and in the end you do not even miss it: Albania was like a stagnant lake whose stench became a habit of life, stagnant and flat like that lake .... ". At the foot of the mountain Daiti, in the crash-bomb bunker that, together with another 700,000 (one every 3 Albanians: a real madness!) Had to protect the dictator and all from external assaults, today there is an air of freedom and trust: that freedom that young people of 15-16 years shout out loud that dark periods of history are no longer repeated.
They are the clean river that will flood the lake a stagnant time with a flow that will reach the sea: the sea of ​​freedom!

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During the trip from Bari to Tirana via Durazzo, President Michele Capasso and the artistic director of "Mediterranea 18 Young Artists Biennale" discussed on the ship and on the bus, retracing the history of the Biennale of young artists from Europe and the Mediterranean and examined the concrete challenges present to support dialogue and exchanges between young people.

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A multitude of artists from Albania, Austria, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Cyprus, Egypt, France, Great Britain, Greece, Italy, Lebanon, Malta, Montenegro, Morocco, San Marino, Palestine, Portugal, Serbia, Slovenia, Turkey and Tunisia are the protagonists of the 18th edition of the Biennial of Young Artists of Europe and the Mediterranean entitled "Mediterranea 18 Young Artists Biennial": a multidisciplinary international event that took place in Tirana and Durres, Albania, from 4 to 9 May 2017.
A great event that, through the presence of more than 230 artists from Europe and the Mediterranean, has brought beyond the Adriatic the deepest and most contemporary sense of Mediterranean and European culture.
Since 1985, the year of its first edition, the Biennale has been held every two years in a different city in the Mediterranean area and is aimed at young artists and creatives. BJCEM is an international network with over 60 members and partners in Europe, Middle East and Africa, whose support makes this event possible by guaranteeing the participation of artists from their territories.
The aim of this international network is to create opportunities for young artists by promoting mobility, exchange, mutual understanding, intercultural dialogue, collaboration and training. The Association supports their creativity and puts them in contact with local and international realities in order to help them to grow personally and professionally.
230 visual artists, directors, writers, writers, actors, musicians and graphic designers aged from 18 to 34 years (born from January 1,1982) have been selected in the visual arts, applied arts, cinema, music, shows, literary creation sections.
In Italy, in particular, the sections involved different local realities: for Visual Arts, the Municipality of Ferrara was in charge of the selection; Music, Cinema and Graphic journalism were taken over by ARCI; the Teatro by ARCI Regionale Emilia Romagna; for Performance the GAI-GiovaniArtistiitaliani; for Literary Creation ARCI Regional Puglia.
The artists were invited to think about the general theme "HOME", elaborated by the Artistic Director Driant Zeneli, who articulated it in the four themes History + Conflict + Dream + Bankruptcy = Home. This issue is particularly relevant in a country like Albania with a history of isolation and an extremely rapid transition. A geopolitical area in which history, conflict, dream and failure constantly pass through everyday life.
The artists' journey was, therefore, on the contrary, strongly desired by the Puglia Region, in support of cultural and integration policies, in deep synergy with the Albanian Government.
It has been a kind of migration of young creative minds who have gone to live a land in full social and cultural rebirth: from Bari in over 120 have climbed on a ferry that brought them to Durres, and on board there was a conversation on the theme of "Art and migrations" with the Greek sculptor Costas Varotsos, Albanians Adrian Paci and Roland Seiko and other internationally renowned guests, who are now joining the initiative.
The event was also attended by schoolchildren from Puglia, selected through an online Call, on the theme that characterizes Mediterranean 18: migration. In this way, the winning youngsters also had an exceptional opportunity to board the project, participating in the opening ceremony in Albania.
The Apulian theatre pubblic, to which Regione Puglia has entrusted the organization of events, has published (www.teatropubblicopugliese.it) the CALL on the general theme of the 18th Biennale of young artists in order to identify the 3 classes that have participated in the initiative alongside the artists.
Secretary General of the United States of the World Michele Capasso, one of the founders of the Biennial since 1985, participated in the events in Bari and Tirana and awarded all participating artists from the various countries the title of "Standard Bearers of the United States of the World": for sport, for peace.

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President Michele Capasso - during several meetings with representatives of the BJCEM (the Biennial of Young Artists) recalled a collaboration started in 1985 on the occasion of the first edition of Barcelona, continued in Salomicco and consolidated in the edition of Turin in 1997. To remind him of many friends: among them Luigi Ractlif and Costa Varotsos.

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The Albanian boys between 15 and 16 years of age that we brought to the Bunkart of Tirana so that they knew the recent history and isolation of their country concluded the visit and the meeting with the cry "living freedom": great is the emotion in the depths of the heart after the dark period that Albania lived and that had led it to the margins of history, without future ".
This is the comment of President Michele Capasso at the conclusion of the recent trip to Albania during which he recalled the commitment of the Foundation and, in particular, its scientific director Prof. Nullo Minissi for the democratic development of the Balkan country.
Many appeals, many initiatives that in over a quarter of a century the Foundation has developed Albania: a country that is now proposed as the "beating heart of Europe".

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