Cristiana Moldi Ravenna’s poetical research is concerned with “the possibilities of a change”. Repeating the sounds from the first line to the second one of a poem, down to the last word, in an infinite chain of similar words, something differ and change, giving origin to new modifications of sense and meaning.

Neologisms like Perseduzione (it may mean “iper-seduction or “because of seduction” according to the reader’s feeling) witness the complete ‘authority’ of the author. The structure of her books is like that: on the right page she writes a dialogue and on the left page a poem, so a dialogue has to follow some rules to let people understand your ideas, while poetry can be expressed with a very synthetic language. So the reader is allowed to follow the different feelings and emotional situations that sometimes need poetry to be expressed and sometimes need a dialogue.

In 1996 after publishing Primo Grillo Secondo Grillo (First Cricket Second Cricket) Andrea Zanzotto wrote to her “I hope you will find somebody who wants really to understand you” it was a good omen as she won the first prize of the national competition “Theatre and Science” and the jury composed by the philosophers and directors Giorello, Gregori, Quadri, Ronfani, Roboni, Sequi, gave the following motivation to her prize: “the jury appreciated particularly the phone – mathematic score made up of visual suggestions together with the experimental writing that has the specific function of questioning itself on a possible theatre of poetry going to the extreme debate on the sense itself of poetry”. Gianni De Luigi always supports her work and presented and performed it many times on different occasions with his students.

Books and performances

1978 Genesi continua, Cluec, Venice; book and performance, Nuovo Spazio Art Gallery, Venice
1984 Some Contradictory Aspects; book-essay on the work of the graphic designer Aubrey Beardsley
1985 Portrait of the Artist Computer art in Venice, Exhibition New York University in Venice
1979 Uterus Heart and Mind, book and performance, La Chiocciola Art Gallery, Padova
1982 Polaroids: Working with an Image Biennale of Bilbao
1988 Perseduzione, book, performance and video
1996 Primo Grillo Secondo Grillo (First Cricket Second Cricket) Supernova, book and performance; winner of the first prize “Theatre and Sciente”.
1998 Primo Giardino Parlante (First Talking Garden) Supernova, book and performance,The Talking Labyrinth; book and performance
Perfect Labyrinth; book and performance
Without Labyrinth; book and performance
2000 Helen and the War, Supernova, Venice, performance and book
2005 Cadeau (Present) performance video at Studio Tommaseo-Trieste Contemporanea. exhibition-performance
In this exhibition, by means of a game, like bingo, CMR explained her work to the public
2005 Fragments exhibition and reading of poems at Ai Miracoli Gallery

Exhibitions and books on urban signs

From 1979 to 1984 she had exhibitions with Guido Sartorelli on town design
Rome and Geneva, Modena, Rome, Ferrara
In the Sign of Modena, Modena
Inside the Forms of a Town, Galleria del Cavallino, Venice; Rome, Warsaw
Semiopolis, Venice
Graz Zeichen Einer Stadt, Am Landesmuseum, Graz
City as Means of Publicity, Venice
City as Means of Communication, University of Siena
Metamorphoses, (Gianni De Luigi’s idea)
All the exhibitions had always a catalogue with original texts.
In 1987 she developed a section of computer art in Graz for Arge Alpe Adria where the public could give origin to a new Central Square on a computer, assembling the town signs of Venice and Graz.
2006 August NYU at IUAV lecture How to perform a performance
2008 June – 2009 January, exhibition
‘Viaggio in Italia’ at Landesmuseum Graz
2009 Canti del Risveglio, a book of poems, Supernova.

Books and Articles of Art

1989 Secret Gardens of Venice, photos by Gianni Berengo Gardin
researches and texts by Cristiana Moldi Ravenna, Tudy Sammartini
Arsenale Editrice Venice, 1989 (2001 5th edition)
Artelaguna ‘95, directed by Simonetta Gorreri
Centenario de La Biennale di Venezia, Marsilio
1996 The colours of light, Marsilio, Venice
1998 Miniature, poetic transcription into Italian of the poems written by Socrat Janovic, Edizioni del Cavallino, Venezia
2005 ‘The light beyond the surface, essay on Mario Deluigi, ‘Yacht in Venice’
2006 Spatialism in Venice essay on Carlo Cardazzo,‘Yacht in Venice’
She writes for Nexus magazine.

Poetry for Music

Since 2002 she has been working with the composer Janusz Podrazik.
2002 ‘Primo secondo terzo accordo’ performance, music and poetry, movie by Janusz Podrazik
2003 ‘Appello alla nazione’ music and poetry, Biennale of Venice, with Alfredo Pirri and Franco Jesurun
2005 ‘Kritiken Nostalgia’ for la Groggia Theatre, Venice, new themes for poetry and music.

Contact

Writer (Germany)

Photo: Magdalena Becker

Artur Becker was born in 1968, the son of German-Polish parents, in Bartoszyce (Masuria). He has lived in Germany since 1985. He studied the Cultural History of Eastern Europe and German Language and Literature, and, since 1989, has written novels, short stories, poetry and essays exclusively in German.

His first novel »Der Dadajsee« (1997, tr: The Dadaj Lake) is about the countryside of his childhood, to which a Polish Gastarbeiter returns from Germany. Masuria remains, in his later works, the soil in which his writing has its roots: »I see Masuria as my own landscape. Every writer has certain chores. And my chore and duty is to address my home, that is, to tell stories about Masuria and to reveal this place.« Masuria also often serves as the starting point for a world tour. In »Onkel Jimmy, die Indianer und ich« (2001, tr: Uncle Jimmy, the Indian, and Me) a 16-year-old boy emigrates to Canada with his anarchist uncle to fulfil his dream of becoming a musician, before returning to Masuria after nine adventurous years abroad. »Kino Muza« (2003, tr: Cinema Muza) is about a ticket attendant who commutes between two political systems. The picaresque novel »Das Herz von Chopin« (2006, tr: Chopin’s Heart) in turn is a story of border-crossings which deals ironically with the romance of the émigré and car dealer milieu. Becker’s novella »Die Zeit der Stinte« (tr: The Time of the Smelts), also published in 2006, is about a German-Polish Spätaussiedler (resident of the former German territories to the east) who begins to investigate the murder of a concentration camp commander by three prisoners at the end of the Second World War. Becker’s most important – and controversial – work to date is his novel »Wodka und Messer. Lied vom Ertrinken« (2008, tr: Vodka and Knife. A Song of Drowning). Against the backdrop of recent Polish history – the Solidarnosc movement, martial law, the changes which came in 1989 and the time which followed – he tells the story of Kuba Dernicki, a dissident who flees to the West. Twenty years later he returns to his birthplace in Masuria, where he is confronted by the dark secrets of the past. Artur Becker’s latest novel »Der Lippenstift meiner Mutter« (2010, tr: My Mother’s Lipstick) is also set in a bizarre small town in Masuria, populated by all kinds of weird characters, from which a young rebel dreams of escaping.

The author has won numerous prizes and grants, including the Adelbert-von-Chamisso-Prize in 2009. Becker writes regularly for the »Frankfurter Rundschau«, the »Rheinischen Merkur« and other newspapers. He lives in Verden an der Aller, near Bremen.

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