Hello, I am Nora!

Where are you from? What are you doing in Amsterdam?

I’m from Scandiano, a little city in the north-east of Italy, not far from Reggio Emilia, where some of the partners of SAMA are located. I came here to Amsterdam because I met Anna in Italy and she offered me to work at SAMA for a couple of months. Back then I just got my bachelor degree and I had decided to take a gap year. I wanted this free time I took for myself to be great and worthy and the idea of spending it working in the Netherlands seemed exciting to me. I never was involved in something like SAMA before and I thought that challenging myself with something new could be instructive and inspiring. Now I just landed here and, welcomed by the rainy and grey typical dutch atmosphere, I’m ready to start my journey.

Can you tell me something about the place where you come from?

Scandiano is a small and comfortable city. It’s famous in Italy because of Matteo Maria Boiardo, an author from the Fifteenth century who wrote the poem L’Orlando Innamorato (“Orlando in love”). Boiardo lived in a majestic castle that towers in the city centre making it fascinating. In the garden of the castles are hosted throughout the year cultural events, wine festivals and movie nights. In his honour we celebrate in May “Festival Love”, where shops stay open at night, the city is filled with stands that sell food and other stuff and concerts with famous italian singers and dance shows are hosted. Another relevant personality from Scandiano is Lazzaro Spallanzani, a scientist who was active in the Eighteenth century. He even appears as a character of the well-known Sandmann story, written by the German author E.T.A. Hoffman.

Since we are speaking of Italy, I have to mention the typical food of the region where Scandiano is located, that is Emilia. Here you can taste delicious erbazzone (a kind of pie with spinach), gnocco (a type of bread), rice-cake and, my favourite dish, cappelletti. This last one is better known as “tortellini”, but you should never call it like that in front of people from Reggio Emilia, your life would be at risk! Tortellini and cappelletti are really similar indeed, but they are not exactly the same (the recipes are slightly different). You can eat tortellini in the nearby provinces of Modena and Bologna. 

What is your favourite activity/the things you like to do during your free time?

I always loved books. I’m an omnivore reader: fiction, non-fiction, biographies, diaries, comics, graphic novels… I love them all. Lately I’ve been reading more gladly non-fiction books. I love to learn and go deeper into current themes, such as mafia, migration, politics, psychology and so on. It shapes and broadens my vision of the world, giving me more awareness and knowledge, tools that allow me to be a better and more informed person. Being able to understand more and more about the world that surrounds us it’s essential. Reading is one of the most powerful means, such as art. I like books so much I graduated in Modern Languages and Literature. I studied linguistics, German and Dutch language, literature and culture. To be honest I am not very good at speaking them, but I really enjoyed the culture and literature part of my bachelor's degree. For this reason I’m happy I can spend some time in the Netherlands. I’m looking forward to visiting museums and libraries here.

What is your relation to street art? Art in general?

I have to admit that I never approached street art before I got to know Anna. But I find it an interesting field and it always makes me happy to discover and learn about new things, so I’m looking forward to living my experience with SAMA and to seeing what it will teach me. When I attended the SAMA&partners meeting in Reggio Emilia we went for a walk to the ex-Officine Meccaniche Reggiane to see murales painted onto the wall of the abandoned factories. It was just then that I realized that street-art forms a relevant piece in the cultural mosaic of Reggio Emilia and that getting to know this form of art it’s important if I want to really know my city in all its facets. On this occasion I also got to know Psikoplanet and other artists and the explanation they gave us about the use of street art fascinated me.

For what it concerns art in general I always had boring art teachers in school, so I had to study art on my own. Luckily my mother and my sister are experts in this field since they attended artistic studies and they can help me catch up with it. Speaking of Dutch culture, I really like Escher art: I visited an exhibit some years ago in Florence and I totally loved his mind-blowing artworks. Obviously I love all the famous Dutch artists, such as Rembrandt, Van Gogh, Mondrian… I’m really impatient to go visit some art exhibition here in the Netherlands!I also like to visit art galleries. I have to go there on my own because when I find a picture or a statue that catches my attention I want to stare at them for an interminable amount of minutes, and people who accompany me always get bored.

In your opinion what’s the most interesting aspect of Street Art?

I find interesting its social value and potential. It can bring together people and it strengthens communities helping express their spirit through the means of art. It fascinates me how it can become a tool in the hands of youth workers: children and youthlings that are marginalized or experiencing harsh social conditions can be helped through street art. Being guided by a competent social worker, collaborating and coming into contact with other people and peers, expressing themselves in an artistic way and seeing the concrete result of their finished artwork: all these things together can save and enhance the life of people who feel isolated or abandoned or not understood, fostering in them a new sense of community and self esteem. Another aspect of this potential is that street art projects can make life in some urban areas better. Places that are abandoned or disreputable, like slums, underpasses or stations, can be requalified through art. During a meeting in Reggio Emilia with the SAMA team and its partners we met the artist Psikoplanet, and it struck me when he explained to us that through practicing street art in these “dangerous” zones he manages to get in touch with needy or homeless people and to involve them into what he’s doing. I love this display of the power of art, that transcends the pure material level and reaches the one of relationships and humanity. 

What are your responsibilities at SAMA?

I’m mostly involved in the STAR 2.0 project. It’s about developing a toolkit for youth workers, in order to train them to make use of the power of street-art for social inclusion. So, I work together with SAMA partners that collaborate with this project and I help translate the modules of the guide to street-art intended for social workers. I am also assigned various tasks like keeping track of the social media posts’ dissemination and so on. 

Do you have a favourite artist in the SAMA collection?

Daniela Frongia. I love her spiderweb-like artworks. Often when people think about street-art they refer only to murales, to paint on the walls. But street-art comprehends the use of other materials too. Frongia expresses her art through threads, creating wide and striking artworks. Moreover she crafts her yarn and she cultivates the cotton by herself. So her artistic process doesn't begin from winding up threads to create an installation, but from far before. This gives me the feeling of a deeper meaning and connection when I look at her art. Of course I like her also because she’s Italian and having her contribute to our artistic richness makes me proud.   

What interests you the most in the concept of SAMA? 

Its accessibility and its attention to social impact. The functioning of the museum itself has its originality: the artworks collection is not concentrated in a small and closed space, but it’s disseminated throughout the neighborhood. People don’t have to buy any ticket to visit it and it’s at the disposal of everyone. Either you’re here on purpose or you are just casually passing by, you can see and appreciate the impressive murals on the walls, that contribute to make the unicity of Dichtersbuurt and Nieuw-West and to characterize the spaces of the community. That conveys perfectly what street art should be: accessible to everyone, community-building and a carrier of beauty, social values and teachings. Street-art is also a tool of social inclusion and that’s exactly what SAMA does with its projects in the thriving and various Dichtersbuurt.      

Which artwork of the SAMA collection do you like the most?

Tolerance by Alaniz. First of all because I like big striking paintings; secondly because it represents the virtue for which the Netherlands have always been famous. The Netherlands host people from all over the world forming a powerful melting pot of cultures, traditions, languages and ideas. On a smaller scale, tolerance is also a fundamental value of Nieuw-west and Dichterbuurts for the same reason. 

What has been the most challenging moment during your time at SAMA so far?

I’m really shy, so everytime I have to attend meetings with partners and I see people that I don’t know I retire into my shell, but luckily in these situations there's always a nice and warm atmosphere and I start feeling more comfortable quickly.