PRESS RELEASE
“Culture is life in places of detention” – An event to reflect on the role of culture in penal institutions
Rome, 8 April 2025 – On Thursday 10 April, at 18.00, in the Saint Pius X Hall in Via dell’Ospedale 1, the event “Culture is life in places of detention”, promoted by the Dicastery for Culture and Education and the Dicastery for Communication of the Holy See, will be held.
The meeting, moderated by the journalist Riccardo Iacona, will involve the participation of experts from the worlds of academia, the arts, journalism and culture, who will debate the value of culture as a tool for growth, emancipation and dignity in detention contexts.
Institutional greetings
· His Eminence Cardinal José Tolentino de Mendonça, prefect of the Dicastery for Culture and Education;
· Dr. Paolo Ruffini, prefect of the Dicastery for Communication.
Interventions (in alphabetical order):
· Stefano Anastasìa, UnitelmaSapienza
· Laurie Anderson, artist
· Roberta Barbi, Vatican Radio – Vatican News
· Rosa Galantino, author and producer of the documentary Le Farfalle della Giudecca (The Butterflies of Giudecca)
· Teresa Paoli, journalists of Presadiretta (Rai 3)
· Cristiana Perrella, curator of CONCILIAZIONE 5 and director of MACRO
· Pisana Posocco and Marta Marchetti, La Sapienza University of Rome
· Marcello Smarrelli, artistic director of the Pastificio Cerere Foundation
· Tommaso Spazzini Villa, artist.
The event will involve the presentation of various projects, past, present and future, national and international, which have been realized inside penal institutions. Laurie Anderson, internationally renowned artist and composer, will illustrate the project “Dal Vivo”, realized for the Prada Foundation in 1998 at San Vittore Prison, and the 2015 project Habeas Corpus, an installation portraying the figure of a young prisoner at Guantanamo.
Cristiana Perrella, curator of the new space for contemporary art of the Dicastery for Culture and Education, “CONCILIAZIONE 5”, will take the floor to present Yan Pei-Ming’s artistic project, Oltre il Muro (“Beyond the Wall”); the Chinese painter has created 27 portraits that give a face to the humanity that lives and works in Regina Coeli prison, Rome’s main and most well-known penitentiary institution, located a few hundred metres from the Vatican.
Among the most keenly anticipated interventions, that of Professor Stefano Anastasìa, lecturer in philosophy of law at the University of Rome UnitelmaSapienza and guarantor of persons subject to measures restricting personal liberty for the Lazio Region, who will offer a reflection on the phenomenon of “prisonization” and the role of culture in the process of re-appropriation of identity by detained persons.
Pisana Posocco and Marta Marchetti from Rome’s La Sapienza University will present an innovative education and social reintegration project for prisoners, aimed at offering educational and cultural opportunities that contribute to the recovery of dignity and integration into society.
Marcello Smarrelli, artistic director of the Pastificio Cerere Foundation, will present, in collaboration with the Severino Foundation and the Ministry of Justice, a permanent site-specific intervention in the Germana Stefanini Rebibbia Women’s Prison, the largest female penitentiary in Europe. At the centre of the initiative is the artistic practice of Eugenio Tibaldi, an artist who has always been attentive to the dynamics of the margins and the emerging aesthetic possibilities in border territories.
A further project in a penitentiary institute, brought to life by the Holy See Pavilion in Venice, for the past Art Biennale 2024, will be presented by Rosa Galantino, author and producer of the documentary Le Farfalle della Giudecca (The Butterflies of Giudecca). A journey through the faces, words and feelings of the women in prison, capable of surprising everyone, even themselves, by becoming guides of the Art Biennale, cosmeticians, seamstresses, cooks, builders, actresses, greengrocers, in a transformation from recluses to operators of a factory with the support of the whole of Venice.
Teresa Paoli, journalist for Presadiretta (Rai 3), will present the Tra arte e mestieri (Among arts and crafts) project, which offers young inmates of the Nisida juvenile penal institute the opportunity to rediscover themselves through workshops and practical courses, from manual crafts to music, helping to transform their stories of error into opportunities for change and hope.
Roberta Barbi, a journalist from Vatican Radio, will present I Cellanti, a radio programme dedicated to prison pastoral care and stories of life inside penitentiary institutions.
Tommaso Spazzini Villa will present 2024Autoritratti (2024SelfPortraits) a participatory art project involving prisoners throughout Italy, allowing them to express themselves through interventions on pages of Homer’s Odyssey. The result is a recomposition of the text that gives voice to the experiences and condition of deprivation of liberty of the participants.
The event will be streamed live on https://www.youtube.com/live/F8zqwaSAB64
For information:
📧 eventi@spc.va / eventi@dce.va
ACCREDITATION PROCEDURE
Journalists and media operators who wish to participate must apply, no later than 24 hours before the event, via the Holy See Press Office online accreditation system, at: press.vatican.va/accreditamenti.
