14 th MARCH NATIONAL LANDSCAPE DAY AT THE EXCAVATION SITES OF POMPEII-POMPEII’S RE-BIRTH. MICHELANGELO PISTOLETTO’S ‘THIRD PARADISE’

Agreat celebration and a flash-mob in the Palestra Grande of Pompeii helps bring a ‘Third Paradise’ to life with Michelangelo Pistoletto, inspired by the re-birth that Pompeii is experiencing.

Pompeii’s re-birth can be seen through Pistoletto’s symbol and his ‘Third Paradise’. The symbol of the ‘Third Paradise’ is the reconfiguration of the mathematical infinity symbol. It is composed of three consecutive circles where the two opposite circles represent nature and artifice while the middle one is the conjunction of the two and represents the womb of re-birth. On 14 th March, the symbol of the master generated a collective action which narrates the past, present and future of Pompeii. It is the re-birth of the site which can now be seen by all.. The installation was created for National Landscape Day, an initiative scheduled for 14 th March 2017 and launched by the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities and Tourism to celebrate the landscape, its history, as well as its importance for the identity of the country. It will be on display in the Palestra Grande until the end of July. Visitors to the site, students, and the staff of the Superintendency got involved for the great event of interactive realisation of this great undertaking that brings together the past, present and future through the use of diverse symbolic materials. The artist met with the public and the press to speak about the meaning of his work and its continuous re- expression in different places and contexts. Also present were the General Director of the Superintendency of Pompeii Massimo Osanna, Fortunato D’amico from the Cittadellarte-Pistoletto Foundation, Paolo Mighetto the curator of the performance for the Superintendency of Pompeii, and Gianluca De Marchi from URBAN VISION the main sponsor of the event. In 2003 Pistoletto wrote the ‘Third Paradise’ manifesto and designed its symbol, represented by a reconfiguration of the mathematical infinity symbol. The large circles drawn were inspired by the theorem of Trinamics, the dynamics of the number three. It was the combination of two units that gave rise to a third distinct, new unit. Thus, the 3 was a re-birth which took place as a result of a fortuitous, or desired, combination of two elements. In Pompeii the ‘Third Paradise’ is crafted and blended with all of those materials that have contributed to building it in the past and continue to transform it in the present and for the future. Thus in the circle of the past we find lapilli, pumices, tuff blocks, ceramic waste, residues of plaster casts like fossils of a lost civilisation, but also construction materials such as the wheel of a water mill, and archaeologists’ tools that were used to preserve the history of the site and humanity. Wi-Fi antennae, ‘ConTe’ electronic bracelets, and a computer symbolise the future and its technology. The central circle is the new life of the Site which keeps regenerating itself between the past and the future. Here nature reclaims its role through the plants, herbs and flowers that once grew in Pompeii whose seeds have been found among the ashes by the archaeologists. A peace has been created that can only be found through trying to live in harmony with the environment.

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