The Arlecchino project, by  Cristina Pacciani

The Arlecchino project is a global art project, linking people from all over the world, aiming to transform virtual connection into a real, tangible work of art, visible to everybody, spreading a message of hope, love, and fraternity. The Arlecchino Project is the result of the collaboration between more than 250 people from all over the world, who might have never met personally, but are in contact through social medium Face book.

Born in May 2011 on the virtual pages of Facebook, The Arlecchino started from a conversation between artist Cristina Pacciani and her children about the abstract world of Facebook and the concept of “friendship”.  Cristina send out a “call to friends, textile artists and everyone who cares” asking them to send a thread, a piece of textile, wool or other materials to create a big work. The response was overwhelming: many parcels came in from all over the world, some of them being big boxes filled with many treasures. Together with the materials, personal messages and stories arrived, from all kinds of people with different nationalities, spread all over the world. The challenge to the artist was not only to work with many different materials, a colorful pallet decided by the choices of the participants, but also to tell all their stories, to unite them in a flowing piece. Cristina realized first 5 colorful felt panels for the exhibit in Amsterdam in 2012 and another 10 for the exhibition in Florence, Italy in 2013.Each panel being 10 meters long, for a total of 150 meters felt so far.

In 2014, the participation to the project has been extended. The first two years, people would send in materials and Cristina would use them to create. This was a great experience .New for this year is the possibility, for textile artists from all over the world, to also send a personal small panel, made with textile and inspired by The Arlecchino Project, in order to display their own talent and techniques. More than 100 new participants have signed in so far and works form artists from all over the world is finding its way to Cristina’s studio, to be exhibited along with the huge, felt panels during the next show. Cristina hopes to give back some of the success and attention she enjoyed because of this project to all participants.

I am planning to bring it to Australia with a number of related events to work with local people and involve the public.

I would very much like to create something similar also for New Zealand and eventually come there in 2015. I would like to be able to teach and I have developed  a special Arlecchino workshop in which the participants can learn and try different texture techniques in felt and also work on a collective piece. In 2015 I will also be teaching the felt haute couture designs that I am currently using for my work with Ronald Kolk (www.ronaldkolk.com,) a famous dutch haute couture designer.

To find out how you can be involved in this project click here The Arlecchino Project