Volunteering and Documenting the Collections of Rome

Work camp in Zurich, Switzerland

The Intercultural Arts & Crafts Camp (Zürich-CH) and Re-cycling and Up-cycling Art Project (CH-SCI 11.2) were organised by the staff at Jugendkulturhaus Dynamo in collaboration with SCI, a global volunteer organisation that celebrated more than a hundred years of voluntary work, which also has a branch in Ljubljana that allows international co-operation or training in various areas of volunteering. The plan for the work camp was supposed to be developed in fourteen days, which was organised in a way, so that a volunteering schedule was made for the working days, from Monday to Friday, amounting altogether to ten days.

During the first days, which were Monday and Tuesday, the participants took part in workshops that introduced screen printing, showed how to make things of fabric and how to master the metalworking techniques. Each one of us seven volunteers mastered the art of graphically designing or started graphically designing the fabric as well as forming the final designer product, which was made using various materials. The presentation took place in the studios of Jugendkulturhaus Dynamo, which we were free to use during our free time as part of the volunteer project, in order to explore our own personal creativity or the craft and art techniques in an individual’s creative work.

The six-hour volunteer workday was the product of the two members of staff at Jugendkulturhaus Dynamo who contacted the volunteer-coordinator, the participant of the Intercultural Arts & Crafts Camp whose home country is Switzerland. The three-day project of the second half of the first week of the international volunteer work camp took place in the field and in the studio, which resulted in volunteers being split into two groups, one smaller and one larger, in both fields of work. The first small group was led by me and the organiser at the Jugendkulturhaus Dynamo studio. We planned the making of cushion covers for the relaxation area outside in the field, while the larger group was led by the organiser and the volunteer-coordinator, who guided the participants in building a wooden construction out in the open.

The demanding voluntary work of the first week of the international work camp in Zurich took its toll on my wish to continue my journey, so I decided to take the RADT (Rapid Antigen Detection Test) and book a flight to Rome in the next couple of days. Thirty worked hours of voluntary work in the first week of the international work camp meant nothing more than a good measure of newly gained knowledge and experience, which I had the opportunity to acquire at the Intercultural Arts & Crafts Camp at Jugendkulturhaus Dynamo in Zurich, Switzerland.

Rome, the Eternal City, Italy

The route to Rome and all the other paths that lead to the Eternal City were reminiscent of the well-trodden paths, which helped the ancient Romans settle the surroundings of their living space, leaving the history of European legacy behind them for the modern European citizen.

The purpose of my trip to Italy changed each day thanks to my plan of documenting certain gallery and museum collections, so I flirted with the spontaneous influence the large metropolis had on me. The city where any trace of historical reference to a cultural heritage of the ancient Romans can suddenly take over you. My free thoughts started nudging me towards the original purpose, which meant visiting the permanent collection at the Galleria Spada. The collection consists of four well-stacked exhibition areas where visitors can view almost 200 paintings and the famous garden with an arched passage from the era of European baroque.

As is usual for galleries and museums, there was a wide array of various items for sale, without which I simply cannot imagine a clear beginning of the institution and the detailed collection of the exhibits, which was why I picked the literary work by Maria Lucrezia Vicini – Guide to the Galleria Spada, 2015 from the bookshelf.

The next literary work I picked at the bookshop at the Galleria Borghese, which is where I ended up after seeing the permanent exhibition and the garden with the stylistic features of baroque illusionism at the Galleria Spada. Even though I didn’t manage to see the exhibition areas of the grand gallery collection of the Galleria Borghese, my probing mind picked the literary work by Kristina Herrmann-Fiore – Guide to the Galleria Borghese, 2019.

The Renaissance painter Raphael

Villa Farnesina as the second attraction I visited as part of my documenting of exhibition institutions couldn’t be understood any other way than by buying the reproduced iconographic and accurately described artistry of frescoes in the book form by Virginia Lapenta and Alessandro Vicenzi – The Villa Farnesina in Rome, 2019. The loggia of Cupid and Psyche, where the Renaissance painter Raphael with his co-workers from the crafts workshop creates a mythological motif of incalculable wealth, speaks with sublimity of the painting technique and artistic expression of the artwork.

Following the superiority of the artwork of Raphael’s frescoes in the loggia in Villa Farnesina, what caused the visit to the third gallery was definitely Raphael’s work La Fornarina and the dramatic genre motif of the painting by Caravaggio, Judith Beheading Holofernes, at the Palazzo Barberini. The Biblical scene of the gruesome act in the author’s artwork was reproduced by publishers through various literary works, enriching book covers and other items that were introduced to visitors with the motif of murder as a typical image of an early baroque style of the modern age. From the bookshelf at the Palazzo Barberini I picked the literary work by Lorenza Mochi Onori and Rossella Vodret – Guide to the National Gallery of Ancient Art : Palazzo Barberini, 2017.

Sculpture

Ancient art by Greek artists and its Roman replicas, made in the time of the Roman civilisation, is displayed at the Palazzo Massimo in great number. Visitors could look at mosaics, numerous marble and bronze statues, reliefs, urns and vases with various uses, as well as the wonderful sarcophagi that came with all kinds of subject matters.

After having visited the exhibition of typical items of Greek art at the Palazzo Massimo, my great ancient art tour continued at the Museo Giovanni Barracco. The museum’s collection depicts multiple works of art divided into categories by civilisations, such as the Ancient Egyptian art, Mesopotamian art, Etruscan art, Phoenician art, Cyprian art, Greek art, Hellenistic art, Ancient Roman art and Medieval art.

The present of the future

The enormous historical legacy I saw in the galleries and museums would cause me to somehow become removed from the present reality, which is something I wouldn’t want to give in to, so there was one more gallery left on the list which I wanted to visit. The art of stylistic periods before the modern era and afterwards is depicted in an exhibition at the La Galleria Nazionale. The famous names of the artists of modernism showed a diversity in ways of expression and urged one to consider the movements at the beginning of the previous century.

With the six exhibitions that I visited, including the many cultural attractions of Rome, I concluded my documenting of the important gallery and museum collection and booked a flight to Trieste where I took some time off in the Gulf of Trieste.