Workshops
Canticle of the Creatures 2025
On the occasion of the eighth anniversary of the Canticle of the Creatures and the Jubilee Year 2025, Guido Dettoni della Grazia has conceived a collective artistic proposal that will take place in the Church Santa Maria delle Rose in Assisi.
The Canticle of the Creatures was composed by St. Francis, who was nearly blind, in 1224/1225 in San Damiano, Assisi, where he finished it before his death in 1226, dictating the last part to an amanuensis.
On past May 9, 2024, Pope Francis proclaimed the 2025 Ordinary Jubilee entitled “Spes Non Confundit” (Hope Does Not Disappoint) with the theme “Pilgrims of Hope.”
Guido Dettoni has been present in Assisi since 2000 with his Exhibition of Contemporary Sacred Art in the Church of Santa Maria delle Rose in Assisi.
THE PROJECT
It is led by the Cooperativa Santa Maria delle Rose being as a proposal to live the Canticle of the Creatures beyond the intellect, with the hands and blindly like St. Francis, to make tangible the hope that the Canticle inspires.
all the darkness of the world cannot extinguish the light of a single candle
HANDSMATTER Canticle of the Creatures
It is the name of the art project conceived by Guido Dettoni della Grazia which is applied in the Workshops that follow one another during the implementation of the project modeling blindfolded (without sight) the malleable wax. Letting go by listening to the voice reciting the Canticle of the Creatures, this prayer/meditation takes shape into the wax. It is possible to express the spirit of the Canticle of Creatures with the hands.
The hands move into the matter without conscious intent to do anything specific.
The resulting form will be a tangible expression of each person’s inner state, stimulated by the Canticle. Its message of love, respect, and unity with the Creation offers a source of hope, and inspires the participants to become pilgrims of peace.
THE WORKSHOPS
The collective creative process begins on Saturday October 26, 2024 with the first Workshop, and ends in October 2025.
The workshops will take place at the foot of the TAU in the Church of Santa Maria delle Rose in Assisi open to five, maximum 10 ten participants, over 12 years old, from October 2024 to October 2025, once or twice a month according to the calendar to be published.
At the beginning of the session, each participant is given lukewarm malleable wax in the quantity their hands can hold.
They stand in pairs, facing each other, blindfolded, in silence, so that their four hands meet, guiding and being guided by each other and by the matter that unites and divides. Everyone participates in this process, the goal is to awaken the awareness that we are part of a whole, symbolized at this moment by the group. The forms created are not kept.
After this introductory experience, the individual creative process begins by modeling the wax, always blindfolded. A voice-over recites the Canticle of the Creatures in Umbrian dialect, the language in which Francis wrote. The participants have previously read the Canticle in their own language. During the recitation, the hands move in the wax without the conscious intention of giving shape to anything concrete. The shape that emerges when the hands stop is a testimony to the inner state of each participant stimulated by the Canticle.
The wax forms are then immersed in cold water to harden.
Each participant chooses the angle from which his or her form will be photographed so that the tangible form becomes intangible, from 3D to 2D. Everyone will express, and be recorded, what they imagine and interpret by observing it.
Online access
Anyone, anywhere, can access the website https://canticodellecreature.art to read the Canticle in different languages and to find all kinds of information about each workshop: the date, names of the participants, the photographs of the forms, the transcript of the interpretations and comments, eventually the MUSIC and the WORDS composed by hosted artists as well as the VISIONS that Guido Dettoni will have created. See TRANSMUTATIONS.
The participation of artists will be welcomed, both to compose MUSIC, inspired by the VISIONS and with writings about them and the process itself to reach the intellect with the WORD.
Participation
Conclusion
The whole CANTICLE OF THE CREATURES 2025 project will be concluded in January 2026 with the presentation of the VISIONS (several virtual images, still or in motion) created by Guido Dettoni della Grazia. Accompanied by MUSIC and WORDS, they will appear on the website, and will be the subject of an exhibition in 2026, 800 years after the death of St. Francis, which will take place in the Church of Santa Maria delle Rose, and may become itinerant.
The VISIONS will report the names of the authors of the forms used. All online reproductions are “copyleft” and therefore freely available on the Internet.
Reproductions
PRESS
United States of Italy (article)
“Pellegrini della Speranza”: Il progetto Manimateria promosso dalla cooperativa Santa Maria delle Rose di Assisi (“Pilgrims of Hope”: The Manimateria project promoted by the Santa Maria delle Rose cooperative of Assisi)
MEDIA: unitedstatesofitaly.it
WRITTEN BY: Federica Brogna
DATE: 20.08.2024