In an act of arson on Thursday 16 May, our van was incinerated while parked in front of our house.
We are Robert McNeer and Pia Wachter, together with Natascia Fogu the creative team of “La Luna nel Pozzo”. “La Luna nel Pozzo” is a culturale center in the countryside of southern Italy. We’ve been producing cultural and social activities for the last 25 years: with children, young people, families and with local people with cognitive disabilities, including an annual summer theater festival. For the last few years under Natascia’s guidance, we’ve pursued an inclusive regenerative gardening project, “Orthia”.
The police asked us to list any suspects who we think could hate us such to motivate such an act, and we’re happy to say that the list was extremely short. Now the authorities are conducting their investigation to understand what happened and why, but our gaze is at the moment more focused on the present and the future.
In the present we are grateful, overwhelmed by the outpouring of love from friends and colleagues, surfing the waves of support —emotional, and spiritual, as well as ethical and institutional— even from people we don’t know, but who are sustaining us all the same.
In the present, we have also publicly addressed ourselves to the arsonist, singular or plural, to come visit us, anonymously, not for a dynamic of accusation and defense, but to enjoy a clown impro, to take in a show, or have a drink with us and talk. Because we imagine behind a similar action a kind of solitude, and our specialty is dialogue.
Community is a fragile art, based on good faith and maximum listening. In a certain sense, listening is what we’ve been practicing for the past 25 years. Which brings us to the future.
We still have a lot to do, and this event has made clear to us how much passion we bring to our art, an art of enabling the life of the many communities which bind us, often invisibly and inexplicably, to our lives and Life here on this precious planet. This is not just our project. It’s our children’s. Not by obligation, but by invitation.
Now we just want to take this occasion to say thank you, to each and all of you, for your wonderful and wide-eyed participation in this adventure.
We send a link, for anyone who would like to contribute towards a new van, since the old one has become an artistic installation.
for La Luna nel Pozzo Robert McNeer
Donations to the account of “Associazione La Luna nel Pozzo” at
Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena
Via Martiri di Kindu, 94
Ostuni 72017
Italy
IBAN: IT86D0103079230000002241472
SWIFT code: PASCITMMOST
cause: “Purchase of a new van”
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