METAMORPHOSIS
progetto trans-mediale, presentato al VII Global Forum dell’UNAoC (United Nations Alliance of Civilizations)
a Baku (Azerbaijan) il 27 aprile 2016, in una rosa di «Tre proposte concrete del Governo Italiano».
The Tree of Life Project
The study of the Otranto Cathedral’s floor mosaic, a rich story telling of 600 square meters, made of myths and legends from all over the known world: from Ireland and Scandinavia to India, one of the most important and least known Medieval archeological masterpieces in Italy, has originated The Tree of Life Project, developed between 2006 and 2009 in partnership with the Turkish and Italian Foreign Ministries in the framework of the European Commission Program “Civil Society Dialogue – Cultural Bridges”.
The Creative Team
The multidisciplinary research (Theology, Philosophy of Image, Visual Anthropology, History and History of Art) by film maker and independent producer Michele Fasano, Medievalist archaeologist Laura Pasquini, and writer Giovanni Barba gave birth to a creative documentary film and a book.
Book and film
Otranto, the Mosaic, Seth’s journey
In the four-color volume, several essays describe for the first time the entire iconography of the Otranto Cathedral’s floor mosaic, representing a huge Tree of Life.
Michele Fasano’s documentary film Seth’s Journey to Otranto artistically illustrates the spiritual Mediterranean inspiration and the innovative interpretation of the research book.
A pluralistic universalistic theology
Otranto’s Tree of Life evocates a pluralistic universalistic theology (God is one, religions are just different ways to get back to God), functional to the Normans’ unprecedented unification of the Italian Southern population. Here Christians (Greeks, Syriacs, Latins), Jews and Muslims shaped a social and religious complex coexistence, similar to some areas of the Eastern Mediterranean shores nowadays.
A Judeo-Christian, Islamic and Jewish theological synthesis
These shores are the horizon of Seth’s Journey to Otranto, an opportunity to discover the mosaic’s deep meanings through a Judeo-Christian theological synthesis, really influenced by XII century’s Mediterranean Islamic and Jewish mysticism: …
Perpetual Creation
Creation is perpetual, and it is not only at the beginning of History…
God’s Lordness
God’s Lordness is present… and acts everywhere, “for”, “in” and “through” everybody;
Salvation is not only at the end of History
Salvation is always possible, also here and now, for everybody, without any exclusion, and it is not only at the end of History;
The relationship with God
Relationship with God develops from each our own heart: if you want to know God, you should know yourself, and if you want to know yourself, you should know God… and in that same moment three Trees become One !
Presence, Judgment, Salvation are simultaneous !
Metamorphosis
All this follows the more ancient hermetic Mediterranean mystery of «metamorphosis», which welcomes every difference in a constant progressive process of evolution…
Towards the «Universal Man»
… towards the «Universal Man» of Mediterranean hermetic tradition, otherwise said «El-Insanul-Kamil» in Islam esotericism; «Adam Qadmon» in Jewish Qabbalah; «Christus Totus» in Christian mysticism.
Next step: the «metamorphosis» project
Bologna (Italy), Sarajevo (Bosnia-Herzegovina),
Tirana (Albania), Bari (Italy), Thessaloniki (Greece),
Istanbul (Turkey), Jerusalem (Israel/Palestine),
Soussa (Tunisia), Palermo (Italy), Seville (Spain), Rome (Italy)
What is «metamorphosis» project ?
The aforementioned concepts are the basic roots of the renewed «METAMORPHOSIS» project, offering to the people of our age the open identitary principle of metamorphosis. This typically Mediterranan principle can face strong fundamentalist thoughts, by distinguishing without separating, unifying without homologating, finding strength rather than weakness in the dialogue. The principle of metamorphosis originates in the traditional Mediterranean cultures, which contribute to build coexistence rather to destroy it.
The renewed «METAMORPHOSIS» project stimulates new shared, public, and free ways to express the invisible and metamorphical dimension of the Perpetual Creation. This dimension represents the spiritual basis, typically Mediterranean, of a fundamental pluralist universalism, a culture of human rights and authentic mutual dialogue. Our proposal recalls such deep-seeded Mediterranean cultural heritage as a challenge facing the Isis’ war ideology, and dogmatism, as well as any religious or technocratic fundamentalism.
We would like to feed the deep structure of people’s personality in order for their souls to resonate, instead of isolating themselves in a mere consumption of entertainment. Our planned cognitive powerful events will help us to recognize each other as in a mirror. In such emotional context, the vibration from the encounter with people from different cultures will help rediscovering ourselves in a new light, which in our belief was confined only to our exclusive spiritual heritage.
Which are the most effective instruments to develop a «capacity building» on such subtle competences ?
Michele Fasano’s new animation feature film «metamorphosis» will inspire extraordinary Mediterranean musicians’ poetry and music performances, broadcasted through an online platform with poetic and musical webinars as well as worldwide concerts.
The aim of new project «METAMORPHOSIS»
1. A shared sense of belonging
The renewed project’s goal is to develop through stories, music and poetry, a shared sense of belonging based on the principle of metamorphosis, as a typically Mediterranean open identitary feature. With this goal in mind, we will try to highlight the differences between on the one hand “Pluralist Universalism” (God is One; religions are different ways to get in touch with Him) and on the other “Absolute Universalism” (God is the One described in my creed; any difference is a danger).
2. The animation feature film: «metamorphosis»
Freely inspired by the poem «The conference of the birds» by the Persian poet and mystic Farid al-Din ‘Attar, the film tells the journey between fantasy and reality of a group of birds that follow the Upupa (the bird sacred to the wise King Solomon). The Upupa has promised to lead them to the mountain of Kafh, to the presence of the King Simurgh, who will give all the answers to their existential questions. Interwoven with the birds’ plot, the animation feature film «metamorphosis» shows four contemporary characters,completely different between them by age, gender, culture and religion, mythologies, geographical landscapes and historical background and psychological, who in a journey (before Daesh’s atrocities) through Italian, Albanian, Greek, Turkish, Syrian, Israeli and Palestinian routes, experience in their daily life the deep spirituality expressed in the Otranto Mosaic’s Tree of Life. The animation feature film will inspire twelve music, poetry and cinema events in Bologna (Italy), Sarajevo (Bosnia-Herzegovina), Tirana (Albania), Bari (Italy), Thessaloniki (Greece), Istanbul (Turkey), Jerusalem (Israel/Palestine), Soussa (Tunisia), Palermo (Italy), Seville (Spain), Rome (Italy).
3. The online platform
All the project’s partners will jointly develop the planned online platform, which will simultaneously function as activity, tool and methodology, thus becoming a shared space of virtual socialization.
The involved partners (and whoever intends to disseminate the film’s and conferences’ shared values) will be able to download from the online platform the animation feature film «metamorphosis» for small or screen monitors. Each project partner will update its own self-generated exclusive platform section with every kind of content on Pluralist Universalism: texts or images.
4. Geo-localization and self-generating process
New partners may additionally join the online platform, so as to create an interactive community sharing the project’s goals in a constant mutual cumulative process.
The geo-localization of events on the platform as hosting communities, and itineraries, will become the start – up of a self-generating process. The broadened potential audience for every distant performance, as shared formative event, or webinar, will remain constantly open to new partners.
5. Surfing on a huge Tree of Life
Finally every interested Internet user will have the opportunity to enjoy general and detailed aspects of the Otranto’s Cathedral floor mosaic, surfing on its huge Tree of Life of 600 square meters, in a dedicated online platform’s section.
6. Partnership
Institutional Partners:
- R.I.D.E. Rete Italiana Dialogo EuroMediterraneo (Rome – Italy)
- Foreign Affairs Ministry of Italy (Rome – Italy)
- Cultural Heritage Ministry of Italy (Rome – Italy)
- Anna Lindh Foundation (Alexandria – Egipt)
- Cultural Heritage Ministry of Albania (Tirana – Albania)
Other Partners:
- Tantur Ecumenical Institute (Jerusalem – Israel)
- Fondacion Tres Culturas (Seville – Spain)
- Cultural Association LaVozQueEscucha (Seville – Spain)
- U.G. Hastahana Tekija Mesudija, Kacuni (Serajevo – Bosnia & Herzegovina)
- CESES Tirana (Tirana – Albania)
- University of Tirana (Tirana – Albania)
- Association Culturelle Afrique Méditerrannée (Sousa – Tunisia)
- Fondazione Cineteca di Bologna (Bologna – Italy)