ES. Lamodaunisce.
Madre, Napoli - Pinacoteca di Brera, Milano

Within the context of the 2019 edition of Progetto XXI-Madre per il Social, the Donnaregina Foundation for the contemporary arts of the Campania Region, together with LESS (Società Cooperativa Sociale A.R.L. - ETS), is presenting ES. Lamodaunisce. This is a project that has attempted to tell the "lives of migrants" from a different perspective, crossing through and overcoming the dramatic and tragic chronicle that permeates our times. A project that has chosen to narrate personal stories through the language of fashion, understood as signs, traits, colours, fabrics, and material. Giving voice to manual skills among the folds of which words like memory, passion, knowledge, redemption, courage, and dignity all come to life. ES has been conceived as an open and horizontal laboratory, the protagonists of which are young people, often extremely young, all asylum seekers and originally from the Ivory Coast, Mali, Nigeria and Senegal. Right from the very first moment it has been lived as a creative and cultural workshop animated by the values of acceptance and integration.

After a careful "professional" selection, conducted together with Less's social workers, we identified our talents: Ozah Faith, Mamadou Keita, Adama Kouyate, Zainab Lokman, Toure Moumouni, Obagho Rhoda, and Syll Cheikh. Expert artisans from the textile-manufacturing and textile-apparel sectors, with technical-tailoring and technical-textile skills. Thanks to a virtuous system that has seen the involvement of several Italian companies (leaders in the protection and enhancement of the ‘made in Italy’ productions) and designer, Stefano Chiassai, it has been possible to create the ES collection.