Manifesto (en)

Our strong points

Rather than a sanitized place for passive learning, Bombacarta was conceived as a network of personal relationships. Our aim is to learn the art of friendship by living out our passion for the arts. Friendship should not be taken for granted but can be built by the mutual contribution of those committed to it: people who abide by the unspoken rules of respect, dedication, enthusiasm; people willing to listen and to be pro-active. With this behaviour, they are already expressing themselves in an artistic way.

Also, Bombacarta is not merely a firework display of texts and scattered words, neither it wants to be so. It is not simply a club dedicated to various cultural activities. Rather, embedded in it lives a strong and complex project about criticism. Pivotal to our project is the member’s thinking about art’s main themes, and about the big questions about art and the expression of art. This is a list of our themes:

1. Commitment and adventure

We think that engaging in cultural activity should be part of living, as in an entangling adventure of solidarity, fun and sharing of experiences. We think that creative expression is a gift common to all people – and the fabric of any creative moment is a mixture of mystery and surprise by which the artist’s awareness is offered new visions about the surrounding world. We try to live out our passion for the arts as a challenge, to learn how to communicate, share, express critical comments, and discuss about our works, trying to avoid all narcissisms and individualisms.

We think that communication is the most effective tool for sharing experiences and representations of us as human beings, of the world and of our perception of the world – through communication, we can increase our enthusiasm and our understanding of difficulties.

2. Art

Each person describes and represents oneself, the external reality and one’s imagination. Everybody can feel how intuition and curiosity are born and growing inside, and everybody has experienced questions, answers, abysmal visions, sensible discoveries, feelings of triumph and depression, loneliness, togetherness. The artistic expression is a process of invention and production that shapes these existential adventures by describing them in words, paints, photographs, songs, anything.

Three alternatives here:

a. Therefore, our perception of art is not something artificial or a mere stylistic exercise. Art can be approached either by people who are already wise enough, or by anyone who is actively listening to his or her pounding heart. Art is for us a way to express and communicate about what is truly human in our humanity.

b. In conclusion, we think that are can be approached either by being already wise enough, or by listening to our pounding hearts. Art is for us a way to express and communicate about what is truly human in our humanity.

c. literal — We can approach art either because we are already wise enough, or by listening to our pounding hearts. Art is for us a way to express and communicate about what is truly human in our humanity.

3. Art and life

From this background, we would argue that the normal environment of the artist’s training is the arena of all those natural factors of living, dying, making choices, loving, dreaming, suffering, hating, hoping, forgiving. Also, by choosing a specific art as the medium for sharing our existential experiences, we are also taking the challenge of trying to redefine our identity.

We think that a “good” expression of creativity should carry some truth about being, either being in one’s personal world or in one’s imagination. We think that art is “worthy” when it sincerely describes us humans and the world around us, with all its misery, thirst, the quest for identity and meaningful relationships, sadness, feelings and choices.

Therefore, art in our opinion can be found in any creative expression, which can tell us something about the joy and light of living – but also about the dark side, where there is evil and ugliness, and people left alone or aloof. For us, a work sounds “false” when creativity was used for mere seductive aims, without reference to anything real.

4. Criticism

To establish if an author is exceptional or ordinary should not be the first aim of criticism, in our opinion. For us, the true aim of criticism lies in keeping the mind and eyes open to understanding and love, to questioning and being asked new questions. Our criticism is based on a passion for the world.

While the mere excitation and external pleasure appear to us as substantially irrelevant, we think that the inner motivation of any work should be to ask questions about the human capital invested in it. Those questions are oriented towards the motivation of any creative art, about mechanism of its birth, its deep roots, the landscape in which it was born, and the background resonance still travelling with it.

5. Art and understanding

We think that art can help us in reaching a deeper inner understanding. The artist’s view of him or herself, and of the world is best focussed during the creative effort and through it we can understand things that without it we would possibly never discover inside us. This is the value of art, in our opinion. It helps us in the quest for that reality, well hidden within ourselves, which is at risk of remaining unknown.

Life is often ridden by impressions and feelings that stay unused, as if they were undeveloped photographic images; this happens because heart and mind have not developed them yet. Art is like a development station, where the edges of these latent images are progressively better defined.

Without art, there is a risk that living and existing becomes similar to a waterfall, a continuous flow of images and impressions without meaning. If we do not know how to interpret our inner emotional flow, we are at risk of losing control on it.

6. Inner world and history

We think that literature and art are instrumental in penetrating the abyss of human heart, revealing thus and exposing our most authentic inner self, our deepest roots and ultimate objectives. The call to artistic expression requires therefore nurturing an ability to reactively observe the events of life, as if interpreting a text with multiple meanings. Art can help us to increase our intelligence, sensitivity, moral strength, so that we end up better equipped to face the labyrinth of life and history, while searching for their meaning. Art needs a continuous, conscious dialog between external world and inner creativity and criticism. They reflect one another, without distortions as the soul’s arguments and the historical view cannot be separated. The practice of art concerns the understanding of a person immersed in history, who is constantly rethinking the meaning of his or her being in the world.

7. Art and arts

We think that all arts are intertwined, all involved together in a deep interchange. There is no clear separation therefore, between different forms of art, or different artistic sensibility. The sharing of abilities, vocations, and experiences among people who practice different forms of art is something truly fundamental to us.We think that each person’s creativity is empowered by meeting with different expressions of art. In this framework, we work consistently to promote the ability and experience of each person.

8. Practice and talents

We think that the art is enriched by practice and explaining new ways. The born artist is bound to practice hard, developing thus a constant dialog between art and life, experience and practice, talent and sensitivity. To this aim, we promote meetings and laboratories, where
people can work together, exchanging ideas and experience. The common contribution to the personal work of every one of us, by suggestions and expression of feelings, transforms the work of one person in a collective capital.

(translated by Federica Allegretti)