In Alcamo, in the Santa Maria Ausiliatrice neighborhood, Millo has transformed with his street art the wall of a lived-in building into a space for listening. The Jew’s Harp is the title of the mural created as part of Urban Sunrise Alcamo, a project that uses public art as a tool to activate relationships, rather than simply decorate surfaces. Here, painting becomes a pretext for talking about identity, belonging, and a shared future.

The chosen subject is the marranzano, known in Sicily precisely as the “thought-chaser”: an ancient, almost mythical instrument whose metallic, hypnotic sound has run through the island’s folk culture for centuries. It isn’t just a musical object, but a symbol that calls up ritual, orality, and memory—able to evoke a suspended time, far from contemporary frenzy. In the mural, the marranzano takes on a metaphorical dimension, becoming a visual device that invites you to “chase away thoughts,” to move beyond inner and collective obstacles.

The work sits within a precise urban context, engaging in dialogue with the neighborhood’s social fabric and with those who pass through it every day. The idea is to root the image in the territory, turning it into a familiar sign while also projecting it forward: roots firmly planted in tradition, a push toward a possible future. A delicate balance between past and present, in which public art doesn’t impose a narrative, but suggests a direction.

The Jew’s Harp is part of a broader program promoted by Sperone167 ETS and supported by the Municipality of Alcamo, with artistic direction by Igor Scalisi Palminteri. It’s a project that views street art as a practice capable of leaving a mark on everyday life, generating shared imaginaries and new ways of reading urban space. In this sense, the mural isn’t an endpoint, but the beginning of a vibration that—like the sound of the marranzano—continues to ripple far beyond the wall that hosts it.

Read also: In Trastevere, Millo’s first inflatable installation pops up

ph. credits: Gianluca Senia