GIVING VICTIMS A VOICE
A team of professional visual artists and their supporters has birthed a new project that has, in only a few months, raised a loud voice, transforming an old storefront into The Gallery on Main and launching the Empty Spaces Project with a stream of exhibitions.
Leading the way is iPhonegrapher/ artist Paul J. Toussaint and his business colleague, Ann Monteiro. Their latest project brings in Giancarlo Beltrame, an interdisciplinary artist, journalist and film scholar from Italy who is the creator of the new-media installation SVAW! — an international grand project involving hundreds of contributing artists from around the world.
The SVAM! 2014 Putnam project expands upon previous installations reflecting the style and structure of Beltrame’s other mobile-technology based film/installations such as “Hell,” “Purgatory” and “Paradise Now,” which include sound, moving visuals, photography and three-dimensional assemblage and sculpture. The final film is displayed via rear projection through a cloth while intensely layered sound and music is played.
SVAW! developed out of an idea by art critic Maria Teresa Ferrari after she experienced Beltrame’s film installation, “Dante’s Comedy on Mobile Art.”
J. Fatima Martins