The pandemic has undoubtedly disrupted our lives and our habits, by now unfortunately we know this and we have come to terms with it, even if every day we hear it repeated endlessly. But fortunately there are those who courageously try to adapt, to go against the tide in a certain sense, creating something unique, clearly in full compliance with the rules.

To respond to the lack of cultural stimuli caused by the Covid-19 emergency, Aitho Entertainment, thanks to the support of Tomarchio, Testa Conserve, Mercati Generali and Ustep, proposes to bring works by young Sicilian artists around the windows of restaurants, bars and businesses in Catania.

“A year after the beginning of the pandemic, the desire to return to museums and fill our eyes again with beauty has led us to conceive, realize, set up and finally give birth to ‘Aitho in vetrina’: an urban exhibition that comes to life on the windows of stores, bars and restaurants in the center of Catania. An initiative that has allowed us not only to bring together very different realities and young Sicilian artists with various expressive languages that we support and admire, but also to give something to our community” – Noemi & Giulia.”

Like many other sectors, that of art because of the pandemic has been really put to the test, but that does not mean it has to stop. Initiatives such as these represent an antidote, an escape route to make us forget, at least for a moment, the situation we have all been living with for the past year.

The project has been realized and curated by Noemi Di Nunzio and Giulia Testa, who have created a traveling exhibition through the streets of the city of Etna, divided into three different paths. “Aitho in vetrina” therefore proposes to unite those realities that today are not going through a good period to art, in order to overcome together this moment and create new synergies in the city, especially for the future. The artists involved are: “Acquatonica Studio, Andrea Aloisi, Claudio Majorana, Cuore Tropicale, Dario Torrisi, Fabrizio Scarpignato, Gianluca Normanno, Glauco Canalis, Gummy Gue, Iacopo Costanzo, Martina Greco, Matteo Guarnaccia, Monica Alletto, Nadia Ruju and Roberta Castorina.”

We had a chat with the two of them, Noemi Di Nunzio and Giulia Testa, to explain how “Aitho in vetrina” was born and what its goals are.

Starting from the principle, as we have amply reiterated in past articles, music but in general art and culture and all the fields they embrace should never stop, but rather should be almost an engine of rebirth. It’s clear that “Aitho in vetrina” was born because of (unfortunately) the pandemic, but where does your idea of a traveling exhibition come from?

In the events produced by Aitho Entertainment, since its inception there has always been an exhibition to highlight and enhance the talent of young emerging local artists. Some of the artists who have taken part in “Aitho in the Showcase” have already exhibited many of their works during past events. It’s something intrinsic to Aitho that was born from the desire to bring together every artistic language whether it be art, culture or music. Everything was born spontaneously both because we missed and miss being able to go to museums, and because we both share this passion for art. Then we saw similar initiatives in other cities, while in our city everything was at a standstill, so we thought we should make ourselves heard and not stay still.Maybe we should restart from this, from this kind of initiatives, we are a country full of resources and cultural heritage, but sometimes culture is put on the back burner.For example, I live in London (Noemi) and I see that there they commercialize and exploit every single thing they have and thinking about Italy I often repeat to myself that if we did a pinch of what England does, we would “want” more than them.
Last but not least, everything stems from the desire to see beautiful things again and to feel part of a community again, after spending a year locked up at home and always seeing the same people, spending most of the time with our eyes fixed on the computer screen to work or watch a movie.

With “Aitho in vetrina” you have united realities in crisis, giving visibility not only to emerging artists but also to one of the sectors most affected by the pandemic, such as the restaurant industry. But in spite of this, you have not forgotten another problem that is unfortunately also very important, such as the environment. An aspect that you have not underestimated, on the contrary, each path is designed and built to be visited on foot, thanks to the fundamental contribution of the start-up Ustep. So inside the exhibition, indirectly or not, there is also the theme of sustainability.

The paths have been designed just to walk, to live again the city. The ploy was just that, even if Sicily were to pass into the red zone, one of the few things allowed will be walking.So we have built and divided everything into paths. The beauty of the project is also this, having been able to involve different realities of the city, uniting and gritting our teeth together, feeling that we are all part of a community, starting with the guys at Ustep who have married our initiative and hosted the paths in their app. Then thanks also to Martino Greco who also designed the map of the routes, making everything visible.

The last question instead is reserved for those people who are the protagonists of “Aitho in vetrina”, that is, the artists. What was the selection process?

We like to think of Aitho as a future agency where there are various artists, that it is a network of connection between artists, musicians and so let’s say that at this moment with this initiative everything has taken shape. In fact, many artists have already exhibited at Aitho, such as Cuore Tropicale and Martino Greco, or Iacopo Costanzo with his installations, then we also made an open call through our social channels and from there we selected someone. In the exhibition then there is not a real theme, except for photography, because the idea was to remain free from everything and not get trapped and that’s why there are also artists all different from each other as photographers, illustrators and designers.And so to leave an expressive freedom to everyone we didn’t give a theme, so the selection was purely aesthetic.As we said, the only theme present is photography with the contribution of Glauco Canalis, who took care of the photographic aspect entitled “Eyes on the city” and that extends over a good part of the second path.Each photographer has put on display a photo of the city captured from his personal point of view. A sort of return, to give back to the city a look from the point of view of different photographers. So you can find photos of the cliff by Claudio Majorana, or the San Berillo district photographed by the same Glauco Canalis or Roberta Castorina who has immortalized the other maritime area of the city (La playa).

Photo credits: Claudio Majorana