Madre per il Sociale: art and inclusion in Scampia

The Madre museum in Naples has launched 'Madre per il Sociale', a social inclusion project in partnership with the GRIDAS association of Scampia, founded in 1981 by architect and theologian Felice Pignataro (1940–2004). The project will create a summer factory of educational activities, partly in the museum's Project Room and partly in Scampia, involving children and teenagers from difficult neighborhoods. Participants will meet US artist Cécile B. Evans (born 1983 in Cleveland, Ohio), author of 'Amos’ World (Episode 3)', in collaboration with Associazione Centro Insieme Onlus. The initiative uses art and creativity as an alternative to street life and aims to make the museum accessible to all. Concurrently, the exhibition 'Felice@Madre', curated by director Andrea Viliani, honors Pignataro's legacy: founder of GRIDAS (Gruppo Risveglio dal Sonno), he pioneered murals in Naples' hinterland and launched the neighborhood Carnival, a parade of handmade masks and floats that has run for 36 years every February. The exhibition collects testimonies from the 1980s onward: painted banners, papier-mâché and polyurethane masks, and recycled-material sculptures used in the Carnival. It tells the story of Naples' peripheral areas, balancing decades of marginalization with resistance.