Cover art: Clay pieces by Tommaso Correale Santa Croce.
When art is inclusive
Cavallo Blu was born from the experience of professionals wishing to work on social inclusion projects that also have a cultural impact on the community.
Overcoming prejudice
by overcoming the stigma of mental health issues and marginalization through civic education practices; encouraging the inclusion of marginalized individuals in a social network, fostering the recovery and development of artistic potential in a dialogue with the community. I spoke with Paride Ferrari, association co-founder.
Camilla Boemio: How did the association Cavallo Blu* APS come to life? What sparked the kind of cohesion needed to create such an essential project?
Paride Ferrari: It all started with a theatre and art workshop experience that a group of mental health service workers developed together with a group of patients inside several public and private psychiatric residential centres.
Some of us had already been involved in artistic activities with people living with mental health conditions, while for others it was the first time. The experience was very powerful at the emotional level for everyone and deeply engaging.
When the theatre activities and workshops came to an end, it was inevitable to ask ourselves some questions about what we had just experienced. Was it actually useful for the patients’ therapeutic journey? And how did the professionals experience relating to the patients in a different way, without the usual “professional role” as a filter?
Through these conversations, we gradually realized not only that the experience had had a strong emotional impact on both patients and staff, but also that artistic and expressive practices could not just have a rehabilitative function, but could also be a powerful vehicle for inclusion.
Art, in this sense, is a space where “another language” is spoken — one that is different from everyday life. In the artistic field, when we step outside the usual categories of real/unreal or normal/abnormal, we create a shared code that enables encounters, removes prejudices and erases differences.
When “we make art together”, there are no longer patients, doctors or educators. Identities — and the relationships previously shaped by roles — can be redefined.
When that experience ended, we shared our reflections and became aware of the powerful inclusive value of these kinds of activities. In our eyes, artistic practices not only had a therapeutic and rehabilitative function, but also a strong cultural impact.
Art appeared to us as a space where another language was spoken: a shared code that created interaction, removed prejudice and, above all, opened up a space where identities could be redefined.
Those experiences were very important for us because they allowed us to witness a process that had a real cultural impact. Once an artistic act is shared and made public, it becomes culture. And culture, by its very nature, has an impact on reality and inevitably brings about change — both individually and collectively.
It’s in this context that marginalized people, who society often struggles to integrate and accept in their “strangeness” and who are often forced into the role of “the sick” or “the mad”, can become artists and cultural producers. Through this, they can claim a new social role, one that is recognized by the wider community.
This is how Cavallo Blu was born: from the need to create access to artistic processes and practices for people who, due to their psychological, social or existential condition, find themselves in situations of marginalization and exclusion.
Over time, new people from different professional backgrounds joined the original core of mental health workers, becoming travel companions and enriching our group with new skills and perspectives.
Painting by Marco Avaro.
C.B-: How essential are local and international collaborations in a project that brings aesthetics and ethics together?
P.F.: Collaborations, both local and international, are fundamental.
First of all, because they allow us to be inspired by visions that are different from our own. Borrowing a good idea is, in this case, a crime committed for a good cause!
Secondly, seeing what others are doing and being able to exchange ideas with them protects us from becoming self-referential, a very common risk for associations and working groups.
Also, collaborating with other organizations working in our field allows us to act as a system and therefore be more effective.
Another important reason is that the primary mission of our project is to create relationships between people and associations that are different from one another.
In our view, art is not an individual fact, but a cultural and collective one. We strongly believe in the value of mutual contamination as a primary value of any meaningful cultural encounter.
To return to the relationship between aesthetics and ethics that you mentioned in your question: we are not interested in the purely aesthetic value of an artwork if it remains isolated. We believe in the value of sharing, which allows art to become transformative.
It’s not enough for a work to be beautiful to make it “useful” to people. It must also have an impact — on the person who experiences it, and possibly on society.
Figure 1 works by Tommaso Correale Santacroce at Microfestival delle cose umane; Figur 2, Adele Ceraudo performing at Microfestival delle cose umane; Figure 3: In front of the exhibition Microfestival delle cose umane; Figure 4, 2024 Microfestival delle Cose Umane – Marco Avaro, paintings.
C.B.: . Is there a particular exhibition you’d like to tell me about?
P.F.: Yes, I’d like to talk about the “Microfestival delle Cose Umane” — the “Microfestival of Human Things” — an event that Cavallo Blu organized in collaboration with SPI CGIL Pavia at the Palazzo del Broletto in Pavia in October 2023.
This event was held in connection with World Mental Health Day, with the aim of promoting Outsider Art as a universal language capable of overcoming stigma and stereotypes related to psychological and social fragility.
The festival lasted ten days and involved several artists and their works and performances. Paintings by Marco Avaro, Andrea Gavazzi and Gioele Miceli were exhibited. Tommaso Correale Santacroce presented a multisensory installation titled Le sette sirene (“The Seven Mermaids). Adele Ceraudo, in addition to her paintings, also screened her short film “I Am Not Crazy”.
The Roman poet Guido Celli presented his “Trilogy of the Scar”, a three-act poem that stitches together the wounds of his personal history through poetry.
The festival was also an opportunity for reflection, for example through a meeting with psychiatrist Giorgio Bedoni, professor at the Brera Academy of Fine Arts and an expert on Art Brut.
For us, the festival was a successful experiment in building a Creative Community, where art allowed people to meet and share meaningful moments together — art as a shared ground, able to create connections rather than underline differences.
C.B.: Are there any artists who exhibited that you’d like to tell me about?
P.F.: The first name that comes to mind is Marco Avaro. He is an artist to whom we are all particularly attached.
We first came into contact with him through his sister Chiara, who reached out to us on Instagram to tell us about her brother — about his story, his artistic commitment and his social withdrawal.
We then met Marco and his family in person at their home.
Marco is a multifaceted artist, moving between painting, sculpture and electronic music. His art is raw and instinctive, but it reveals an uncommon sensitivity, capable of capturing the subtle nuances of deep human emotions. His favourite subjects are female figures, demons and sacred icons.
Meeting Marco and his art was very important for our association. Until then, we had only worked with artists directly involved in our workshops. With Marco and his family, we realized that we could also become promoters and curators of exhibitions of outsider artists — supporting them in showcasing their work, which might otherwise remain hidden at home.
Marco is a perfect example of a person who, in everyday social contexts, might be seen as a misfit, but who, as an artist, can be recognized and appreciated — to the point of selling some of his works to Art Brut collectors.
Figure 1: Paintings by Gioele Miceli; Figure 2: Paintings by Andrea Gavazzi; Figure 3: Group show “Arcipelaghi” at Ex Fornace in Milan.
C.B.: Italian society seems increasingly vulnerable to the breakdown of family relations, while institutions and the government do not appear to be ideal actors to ensure the protection of fragility — the very foundation of inclusion and mental health. What are your thoughts on this?
P.F.: Society reflects the social relations that make it up, and institutions mirror the same fragility as the individuals they are supposed to support.
Once there were asylums: total institutions designed to protect the “insane” from their illness and keep them away from the eyes of the “sane”. Today the situation has changed, but it hasn’t been resolved.
We’ve gone from the dehumanization of the asylum to a different situation, where the suffering person is often abandoned or confined to the role of a patient for life. The result is the same: marginalization.
It’s not surprising that the most vulnerable receive little attention. We live in a society where people who are not “performative” are often left behind and considered a burden.
People with psychiatric conditions often cannot work or generate economic value, and for a market economy — which drives government action — anything that doesn’t produce immediate and tangible economic value is of little interest.
At best, the person remains in their role as a patient and becomes part of the “productive process” of the psychiatric and welfare system.
We are living in a kind of paradox: psychiatric illness often leads to suffering and isolation, and society, in response, pushes the person even further to the margins.
Since its foundation, Cavallo Blu has refused to look at individuals — especially those who are mentally fragile — only through the lens of their ability (or inability) to adapt to socially imposed standards of “good functioning”.
Figure 1: Emma Damiano, “Castello con torre”; Figure 2: Emma Damiano, “Caldo,placido venticello”; Figure 3: Emma damiano, “Sogno di bambina” ( 3 phothos courtesy of Rose Vekony); Figure 4: Group sho at Ex Fornace which included Emma damiano’s works.
The Scenius project is based on a digital platform where artists and organizations can upload their works and connect with each other. One of its aims is to bring together people who have found in art a way to express themselves, so they can identify — at least in part — with the role of artist and be recognized as such.
But in order to be recognized and build an identity, you need a community capable of validating the image you are trying to build.
Not by chance, the subtitle of the Scenius project is “Creative Communities”: we deeply believe, as Italian sociologist Franco Ferrarotti says, that “community is the living core of the social.”
Only by creating spaces for meeting and exchange — both digital and in-person — can we try to fill the gap left by institutions and by a society that is increasingly unable to perceive suffering and value differences.
Photos: Art by Adele Ceraudo.
*The blue horse in the name of the association is a reference to Marco Cavallo, the statue of a blue horse that became the rallying point for patients in the mental institution of Trieste in the 1970’s, a symbol for their struggle for liberation. The city of Trieste and the director of the mental institution there, Franco Basaglia, were on the forefront of the national battles that brought about the enactment of Legge Basaglia. In 1978, with Law 189, Italy became one of the first nations to abolish mental institutions as places of segregation and control of people labelled as psychiatric patients. The article here delves into the importance of Marco Cavallo as a unifying symbol for people of all walks of life committed to the closing down of insane asylums.
Camilla Boemio, contributor writer at The Dreaming Machine, covers the latest contemporary art, photography and culture news — from museums to biennials — as well as artists conversations. One of her recent publications is “The Edge of Equilibrium” published by Vanilla Edizioni. Her recent exhibition curated is Ron Laboray solo show “Time and Random Data in Sequence” at De Bouwput in Amsterdam. Her interests include tracking activism for climate change, environmental sustainable living and every shade of green.
