Reflections on the Panorama International Arts Festival 2024 by Prof. Nuccio Mula
Esteemed President and friend Prof. Preeth Nambiar, distinguished members of the Writers Capital Foundation, honorable jury colleagues, and dear attendees and admirers of the Panorama International Arts Festival,
It is a privilege to share my reflections on PIAF 2024. This edition of the festival gathered an impressive collection of artworks from artists across continents, celebrating the unifying power of creative expression. Each work we witnessed reminded us of art’s role as a bridge, connecting diverse experiences and cultures, fostering empathy and understanding. This year’s festival unfolded a profound journey into human creativity and cultural diversity. From the myriad submissions, the artists displayed a courageous engagement with their subjects, bringing forth interpretations steeped in authenticity, skill, and insight. The process of adjudicating such powerful pieces was a profound responsibility, one that the jury approached with the utmost dedication to fairness and respect for each artist’s individuality and expression.
A Celebration of Excellence and Cultural Diversity
Panorama International Arts Festival is more than an exhibition; it is a tribute to artistic journeys and the voices that emerge from them. Through our many awardees, we honored artists from every background, with stories and styles that defined not only their craft but their unique perspectives on the world. The selection of awardees highlighted the festival’s commitment to inclusivity and artistic quality. Each honoree’s work reflected the values of passion, resilience, and creativity that PIAF aims to elevate.
Among the recognized artists, we found exceptional pieces that embodied conceptual and technical mastery, resonating powerfully with audiences and the jury alike. The work by Ioanna Ioannudi, an evocative composition, stood out with its delicate symbolic references, harmoniously balancing color and light to create a deeply compelling visual narrative. Ioannudi’s work resonated with viewers, inviting them into a world where the seen and the symbolic converge.
Work by Pablo Solari took the viewer on a journey through time, drawing inspiration from the early 20th century’s iconic artistic styles. Solari’s composition combined structural precision with vivid imagery, yielding a piece where visual clarity met an expressive intensity, leaving a lasting impression. Another painting by Lucia Puscascu offered a mesmerizing synthesis of concept and form, balancing introspective depth with harmonious arrangement. Puscascu’s work achieved an emotional resonance that went beyond aesthetics, embodying the philosophical richness PIAF seeks to highlight. Her composition showcased a symphony of elements, inviting reflection and connection.
These artists, among many others, displayed remarkable artistry and an unwavering commitment to their craft. Each piece not only conveyed individual creativity but also mirrored the shared values of human resilience and interconnectivity. I extend my deepest congratulations to each awardee whose work was celebrated this year and to all participants for their valuable contributions.
Aspiring to Greater Heights
As I reflect on PIAF 2024’s achievements, I am filled with a renewed commitment to expanding the reach of this extraordinary festival. This year’s participation has renewed my vision for the festival’s future, with the hope that we will welcome an even more diverse array of artists from around the world. With shared dedication, I am confident that in the coming years, we will surpass our goals, welcoming hundreds of delegates, embracing every conceivable category, and drawing talent from even more nations.
Although I do not consider myself an expert in visual art, my engagement with each piece presented at PIAF has deepened my appreciation for the complexity and beauty of these expressions. Writers Capital Foundation exemplifies the ideal of nurturing an environment where creativity flourishes unbounded by borders or limits. This year’s festival succeeded in this mission, and I look forward to the future, where I believe we will see an even greater level of participation and artistic brilliance.
Looking Forward with Hope and Determination
To conclude, I wish to extend my warmest gratitude to all involved in making PIAF 2024 a resounding success. The journey of curating this event, of bringing together artists and audiences alike, is a testament to the Foundation’s commitment to building a global community of artists and art lovers.
Let us look forward, united in purpose and spirit, embracing the profound values of art and culture. With sincerity and respect, I pledge my continued support to Writers Capital Foundation, assured that the Panorama International Arts Festival will continue to inspire, unite, and elevate artists and audiences across the world.
With heartfelt wishes for the growth of this incredible festival, I thank each of you for making PIAF 2024 a memorable celebration. Together, may we strive ad maiora semper—always toward greater things.
Prof. Nuccio Mula
Prof. Nuccio Mula, a celebrated figure in art, literature, and cultural studies, began his prolific journey in 1969 with a published essay at just 13 years old. Over five decades, his career has flourished through academia, where he has taught subjects like Phenomenology of Contemporary Arts and Psychology of Form at the Academy of Fine Arts, and in literature, with seven poetry collections and countless critical essays illuminating Italian art and literature. A member of MENSA and a scholar of Sicilian culture, Prof. Mula has earned international accolades, including the Telamon Prize, and honors such as Knight of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta. His dedication has even earned him the rare distinction of having an asteroid named in his honor by NASA, marking his lasting influence on both the artistic and cultural landscapes.
In this context, we can speak of poetry, characterized by the close interaction of verbal and visual language, where the image accompanies the verse, while the visual discourse of the image interacts with the word to elaborate the poetic world. The visual appeals to emotion through action, while poetry, in turn, emphasizes the predominance of a verbal register, both fields focused on philosophical and intimate reflection, with a message that is wanted to be transmitted both with the word and with the visual. From this interaction of verbal and visual signs, a sense is born and develops that establishes a synergy and a relationship of interdependence, that is, constituting an indivisible and unalterable aesthetic and formal unit.
Poetry is characterized by its internal cohesion, its rhythmic and sound qualities, the predominance of poetic connotation, a meaning, freedom, expressive and linguistic creativity, linking with the artistic dimension characterized by its interpretive qualities, emotion and sensitivity. , expressive creativity and the aesthetic part of art. In this way, both expressive elements (verbal and visual) form an aesthetic unit and converge in the construction of meaning, resulting in a work made of words and images.
Analysing the various aspects of poetic language and visual art, we can see that there is an innovative journey that goes from poetry to image and performance, or on the contrary, from visual art to poetic language. The two have always had a very close relationship. In this way, we can say that “art is silent poetry and poetry is speaking art”, as Simónides of Ceos (VI-V BC) already expressed and later Horace placing poetry dependent on the image.
The Palazzo della Pietà in Venice hosted OMNISCIENT the exhibition of Papa’s photographic works and Barceló’s poems, curated by Mac Art, included in the Amedeo Modigliani Foundation Biennale. On the occasion of this exhibition, the commemorative book OMNISCIENT was published by the Setteponti Publishing House, with the preface by Paolo Giansiracusa and the afterword by Michele Lasala, where the various photographs and poems of both artists are collected. In the first part we find the twelve works of Omniscient accompanied by the twelve poems of Barcelo and in the second part, a tribute to the ten-year career of the artist Filippo Papa with the publication of ten works, one for each career year, always accompanied by poems unpublished by the poet Barcelo.
“Filippo Papa and Joan Josep i Barcelo travel in unison on the curvilinear paths of the universe. They adopt the same synthesis and love the musicality of silence. One captures images that push the gaze toward the Empireus, the other “rebuilds in the ceiling of the sky with every heartbeat”. It would seem that their poetics are entirely constructed by admiring the infinity that dominates our presence. Both look upwards as if looking for a trajectory that pushes the soul towards the place where everything is destined to converge. In this regard, Barcelo weaves verses as light as air, as burning like fire, and reminds us of everyone’s destiny in “asking only to die in the belly of the dome”.
“Filippo Papa and Joan Josep Barcelo, the photographer and the poet, the Sicilian and the Catalan, united in a journey called beauty. Moved by the desire to grasp, in the most varied forms of things, the most intimate essence of being, the two brave wayfarers unleash the weapons they know best. Papa does this by using light, with which he rewrites and describes the order of the world and admirably discloses that silent grammar that lies, eternal, under the heavy blanket of the visible. Barcelo does this by using the word, with which he illuminates, like a powerful beacon, the darkest and most hidden corners of the spirit of man. Two languages apparently distant from each other, but which actually show and prove to be basically the same thing. In fact, photography and poetry are both forms capable of capturing, imprisoning, freezing and crystallizing in an image or in a word the fleeting moment, the instant, the moment; what by nature is destined to live in a short space of time and then soon be swallowed up in the infinite darkness where everything is cancelled out. But art, photographic and poetic, has the strength to steal the moment that is about to dissolve from its evil destiny. At that moment there is the secret of the world, there is the whole sense of being. It is that light that pierces the darkness and illuminates the conscience of man, and that art reveals precisely. An image that, in Papa’s wonderful photos, finds full concreteness in the elegant shapes of a dome pierced by a mystical ray of sunshine. Seen from below and from inside, this almost looks like a circle of light, surrounded by the deepest darkness that eats away and cancels the rest of the church. In Barcelo’s profound lyrics, however, takes on the appearance of those words that no one understands and understands, which however herald a possible tomorrow. In one way or another, the presence of the transcendent is felt in the captured moment; the presence of what is far beyond the narrow schemes of reason. Absolute knowledge, or omniscience, whose most perfect symbol is not by chance the circle, among the forms, the one that best expresses the Umgreifende, the all-embracing of Jaspersian memory, where the possible is understood as well as the impossible”.