At the end of the show, the Italian ambassador to Kenya, Roberto Natali, jokingly said to me: ‘In her desire for success and recognition as a woman, I don't think Elisabetta Sirani could ever have imagined that 400 years after her death, she would be talked about in Kenya’.
The show ‘Pennellate di libertà, la vita e le opere di Elisabetta Sirani’ (Brushstrokes of freedom, the life and works of Elisabetta Sirani), based on an idea by Natali, organised by the Italian Cultural Institute and written and scripted by yours truly with the Kenyan actress and director Wakio Mzenge, celebrated Women's Day in Kenya in the best Italian way possible.
The audience, made up mostly of students, professionals, musicians and storytellers from Nairobi, as well as a good representation of fellow Italians, appreciated and above all were thrilled to have discovered, listening to it in a ‘total’ form between narration, theatre, music and images, the artistic and ‘proto-activist’ parable of a great and unrecognised (especially by Italians themselves) painter of the Baroque period.
In Italy, some remember Artemisia Gentileschi, who preceded her by a few years, for her story of abuse and redemption, as well as for her Caravaggesque brush. Sirani had a different path but no less interesting and touching, as a true enfant prodige, and a premature and emblematic end. In between, the reason for a vast production, including portraits, allegorical works, engravings using every technique, drawings and etchings and the story of her most famous works, including ‘Portia Wounding her Thigh’, ‘Timoclea Killing the Commander of Alexander the Great’ and ‘Judith with the Head of Holofernes’, a series of heroines who for the young Bolognese painter symbolised rebellion against a forced feminine condition (her battle to be able to sign her paintings, for example, something denied to female artists), fidelity to ideals and values (family, in her case, as well as work) but also personal affirmation, for herself and for all women.
A successful show, thanks above all to the extraordinary talent of Wakio Mzenge, with the significant presence of the musicians of Ghetto Classic, the ensemble created in the Korogocho slum to give hope made of notes and eternal music to many young people who are disadvantaged and at the mercy of degradation.
The only bitter taste at the end of an evening like this, the only real shame, is knowing that it will be difficult to repeat such an involving and interesting ‘format’ (as we always hope, for example, on the coast) and that it will remain a one-off event. Thank you and lucky are those who wanted to attend.