The tree-man by Ivano Parolini, an extreme metaphor between life and death of the most brutal offense against humanity that history, unfortunately often forgetful, also renews in the current events of these agitated days, is here, in the powerful simulacrum of a lay woman “deposition”, so poignant, alive, disturbing and “ours”.
And it is in this paradox that lies all the intrinsic strength of the performance "WRECKS" in which the author intends to honor on the day of remembrance the memory of the indelible events linked to the places of Sciesopoli in Selvino and of those extraordinary events which, determined by the tragic legacies of the Nazi madness, here they saw the salvation, between 1945 and 1948, of hundreds of small Jewish victims who survived the Shoah and their consequent gradual return to hope and the future.
WRECKS, an artistic moment conceived and created by Parolini with the sensitive collaboration of the sculptor Giampaolo Pasini, in turn strongly committed to the ethics of places and related human interconnections, beyond being a simple commemorative operation, appears in all its disciplined austerity, a set of "relics" that have escaped time and are left here, an indelible sign and history of a still vibrant legacy.
Traces recovered from oblivion for direct comparison with everyone's conscience: not exhausted, not silent and, despite their obvious distance, not foreign to the present day that accompanies us.
A complex artist, on a path of constant search for relationships with the everydayness of life, even crossing its most conventional fetishes, Parolini has long worked to bear witness to an intense criticism of the present both in the pictorial sphere and in site-specific manifestations.
A commitment that emerges profoundly even in this staging, rich in pathos but in no way indulgent to any liberating pity, firm on the contrary, harsh in its inexhaustible denunciation.
In the overall elaboration of the installation that lives in the heart of the Selvino area, there are many references and themes covered: from the imprints of the initial violence, to a perennial reminder, it is with the symbolism of nature itself that we encounter, through its own emblem to excellence, that tree-man offended, humiliated, burned and offered in all his tragedy, but who still carries the pulsating traces of life within him. Invincible beyond all outrage.
That tree and that man were not defeated but, here is the true meaning of the "offering", supported by the vital breath of the soul of all that defeated humanity that did not reach here, it is to the very eternity of "being" who entrust, again and again, their reason. There are then infinite white balloons competing with a barbed wire for the last extreme door beyond binary deaths, having defeated the sleep of thought and civilization, towards salvation: and it is finally the artist who becomes the intermediary of the overall mystery, where the seed of life to prevail.