TWO EXHIBITIONS AT THE CAMPANA DEI CADUTI FOUNDATION

From 22 November, the Campana dei Caduti Foundation welcomes the public with two exhibitions that weave together memory, art and civic engagement. On the one hand Muky’sPresepi Contro, on the other hand the exhibition organised with the Circolo Culturale Numismatico Filatelico Roveretano, which proposes a rich selection of publications, medals and stamps dedicated to Maria Dolens for the Centenary of the Bell, all sourced from the collections of its members. A dual perspective on past and present, illustrating how the Bell remains a space for meaningful reflection on the theme of Peace.

The heart of the event remains the now historical link between the Foundation and Muky, an artist who intertwined her research with the mission of Maria Dolens for decades. This deep bond, rooted in trust and a shared vision, has each year involved the Bell displaying her nativity scenes during the Christmas season. An event that never loses its impact, as the themes woven throughout the artist’s work remain strikingly relevant, conflicts having continued unabated since then. This had already been clear to Muky from her very first nativity scene, dedicated to Cambodia, and then in her subsequent works focused on the wars that shaped the world’s history: Kuwait, South Morocco, Israel, Somalia, Bosnia, Sarajevo, Palestine, Middle East, Eastern Europe, Afghanistan. A painful catalogue, an archive of wounds.

Her sculptures appear to spring from the very essence of conflict: they tell not just the story of a place, but of the people who inhabit it, particularly those who endure loss. For her, art is an act of ethical resistance. She does not seek the aesthetics of tragedy, but the responsibility of remembrance. Each nativity scene becomes a collective gesture, a tiny act of rebellion against violence. In this sense, her work is intertwined with the words of the many 20th century poets who tried to give a name to the horror of war. Giuseppe Ungaretti, at the height of the First World War, noted: "One stands like / in autumn / on the trees / the leaves"(Soldiers, 1918): just a few syllables that convey the utter fragility of life on the battlefield. A fragility found in the figures sculpted by Muky, bodies that are exposed, vulnerable, never heroised.

Her artistic journey also intersects with the collective memory of 11 September 2001. On that day, which for many marked the beginning of a new era of insecurity, the artist was in New York. The scene struck her with the force of a collective trauma: dust, chaos, sirens, blocked streets, people running or standing still. It was a crucial step in her thought: what can an artist do when we suddenly find ourselves face-to-face with destruction? Muky decided to continue. To continue sculpting, transforming clay as testimony.

Her task, then, became that of preserving names, faces, identities. As a symbolic protest against the eternal recurrence of violence in human history. Muky’s nativity scenes capture this grim continuity with precision: the geographical areas and uniforms change, but the essence of the conflicts remains unchanged.

And this is why the Campana dei Caduti Foundation continues, year after year, to exhibit its works: because they speak a language that - unfortunately - does not age. They remind us that the war is not a distant memory, but an open wound that is still raw. On the Miravalle Pass, the sculptures echo the verses of Paul Éluard, who during the Second World War emphasised that if the voice of justice had ears, the world would have been saved long ago.

Art, then, does not bring salvation, but memory. And remembrance, in the context of Maria Dolens, is a stance, a way of remembering that Peace is not an abstract concept, but a daily and fragile choice. Muky insists on this, through a simple and stubborn gesture: to keep sculpting pain so that it does not disappear, to prevent it from becoming nothing but statistics.

So, as the city prepares for Christmas, the Presepi Contro return to the Miravalle Hill as they do every year. Their relevance lies not in the fate of art, but in the fate of the world. And they remind us that as long as conflicts exist, we need someone who has the courage to look at them and turn them into stories. And perhaps it is precisely this fragile but strong devotion that Muky’s works still show, while the wind through the Campana dei Caduti one again calls on humanity to truly understand the meaning of the word Peace.

Palestine Christmas 1995-1996 - Peace Process

Somalia The memory of war is war - 1993

2003-2004 - Iraq Black gold corrodes the sun

Eastern Europeans