Wassard Elea: In the Press
[Translation
of article from Hrymfaxe, Vol. 35, No. 3, Sept. 2005]
A BREATHING SPACE IN CILENTO
After many years in the U.S., Else and Lars Aagaard Mogensen have now
established themselves in the town of Ascea in Southern Italy, where
they are offering artists, writers, composers, scholars and others
short- or long-term residence on very favourable conditions. In the
following, the Mogensens tell about the place and its possibilities.
Wassard a Elea - a new opportunity for artists, writers, composers,
scholars in Italy
It is quite simple: Ascea is for us an incredibly inspiring place,
nature, culture, quality of life, and we, therefore, believe that it
can be the same for like-minded as well. By this we mean a lifelong
involvement in the arts and sciences, and such that artists, writers,
composers and scholars of all kinds may benefit from the same
conditions by being away, for not too short a time, from the usual in
order to concentrate on subjects of their choice. You could also put it
this way: here are the conditions which we, years ago, should have
liked to have, so now we open the doors for others.
Ascea is a small town, but neighbouring
towns are
close in sight, and we, of course, have no wish to dominate, but we are
thinking of "expanding", partly so that we may have three in residence
at the same time, partly so that there is workshop space for
experimentation, i.e. a small intellectual power house. Whereas
travellers use the places they go, we aim at incorporating the
activities in local life in a natural way. You get something and you
give something in return.
In Antiquity Elea was known as the
cradle of
medicine and dialectics. The air is the same, and clean - with UN's
guarantee for that - so with a new corpus, although more eclectic, made
and available here, maybe it in time can be a "self-inspiring" place.
Fondazione Alario in Marina di Ascea, which is an educational and
research institution, is an obvious partner for cooperation, and we
also toy with the ideas of establishing, for example, an artists' club,
Elea archives, workshop series, a gallery and possibly some publishing,
everything jointly with local as well as international resources.
We are energized by the project, and we
have
received fine response and well-qualified residents. We do not require,
a formal application, etc. and don't expect to have to sort applicants;
we are, however, interested in hearing about well-motivated plans for
work that a stay here in Ascea might advance.
Writers and artists have always held
Italy, this
mystery of joie de vivre, in a special place of heart. The people, the
language, the nature, the light, everything from architecture to
gastronomy (not to forget that the genuine Mediterranean diet is
Cilento everyday diet) have again and again stimulated, inspired and
vitalized the Northerner, who was never unwelcome here, may continue
the adventure, whether it takes the form of the Improvisatore,
archaeologist, Albisola ceramics transformer or simply of working out
of ideas and projects brought along in the trunk: That is our aim.
In the same breath, we want to emphasize
that people
have no need of our approval of their work and, vice versa, people need
not underwrite our aims: Residents can certainly, if they prefer, keep
to themselves and work in peace and quiet, tolerance being a matter of
course.
