ASK THE DUST, ASK THE PEOPLE

February 2014, Turin

“People don’t take trips… trips take people” J. Steinbeck
“To be a real artist you have to be a real person” Victor Rice

The journey” is a poetic prerogative.
In 2013, Opiemme crossed Italy. The “journey through painting and poetry”, recounted by Huffington Post, drew a symbolic line of street poetry from North to South of Italy.
In 2014, Opiemme will cross the Ocean, fly to Haiti and land in Port-au-Prince. The “ask the dust, ask the people” journey, narrated by the journalist and video-maker Gianluca Orrù of Tekla Television, will draw the memory, dreams and sins of Port-au-Prince children.
In the capital of Haiti, Opiemme will be painting together with the children of the Foyer St Camille school, four years after the devastating earthquake of January 12th 2010.
This painting and poetry, playful and colorful project is inspired by John Fante’s famous novel, Ask the Dust (1939).
Questions, questions, questions: the answers from the people. Why are there so many NGO in the country? Why is the situation still so tragic? What has been rebuilt? Ask the dust, the only thing of which there is plenty after the earthquake; Ask the people, who have no voice, what it is like to live in Haiti today. Remember a date, the 12th of January 2010, has been so quickly forgotten.

Why Haiti?
Opiemme made his first contribution to the Haitian earthquake relief efforts in 2010, when he donated works for the “Asta X Haiti” auction held in Turin by the non-profit organization Madian Orizzonti to collect funds for the construction of the Saint Camille hospital in Jérémie. He has donated works for all subsequent editions. This journey hopes to increase the adhesions of both artists and collectors to the auction (https://www.madian-orizzonti.it/come-contribuire)