Scorched. Damaged. Bitten. Wounded. Undermined. Abused. Falling, falling… fallen? JDL Street Art once again grips us where it hurts the most, mirroring our freefall into a manmade darkness that can only last while we willingly give in and give out, while we willingly surrender to the dive and accelerate the fall. Falling, but not yet fallen. It’s all in her trademark, distinctive in both content and form, art and neighborhood, message and location. No wonder that her latest work about the climate crisis, symbolized by a female version of Icarus, falls and rises from the top of the symbolic Serpentone Corviale building in Rome.
Stretching over one kilometer, the massive Corviale housing project was originally intended to house a growing population in the southern suburbs of Rome. Architect Mario Fiorentini who designed and led the development of the project between 1972 and 1974, originally intended for the Corviale to be a utopian and self-regulating community, an alternative to the then-mushrooming neighborhoods called “dormitory districts” that lacked services.
But in 1982 the project’s contractor went bankrupt, and the development of all community and commercial services in the complex fell into oblivion. A fallen ambition.
Stretching over one kilometer, the Serpentone building or the Snake in Italian, bit back at the original developers and, sadly, at the local community as well. Much of the complex was squatted and abandoned, and while some wealthy owners live there, it is mainly inhabited today by families that are challenged both socially and financially.
A falling community? Perchance. But definitely not fallen. For despite the “concrete monstrosity” of the building as described by some, creative and renaissance initiatives have revisited the complex in recent years in an effort to rekindle the relationship between its residents and the Corviale urban context. One of these initiatives is Street Art for Rights whose mission is to put on the map social, economic and cultural causes by bringing art to neighborhoods with difficult backgrounds. Putting on the map such issues literally becomes putting on the neighborhoods’ walls such issues, and with over 30 murals executed so far in the suburbs of Corviale and Settecamini in Rome, and in Lazio between Cassino, Fiumicino and Latina, Street Art for Rights has been making some interesting visual noise.
Giuseppe Casa is behind the concept. Curated by Oriana Rizzuto for MArte Gallery and produced by the Cultural Association ARTmosfera, the idea originally started in 2014 as a special festival project for the MArteLive Biennial and evolved in the past 9 years to branch out and cross borders under the European Union’s Creative Program. Urban street art steps into other European isolated and special neighborhoods, with the objective of highlighting key social issues to a larger European and international audience.
The street art seed for rights was planted in Italy – in Corviale to be more specific, for all what this neighborhood symbolizes. And who better than JDL to inaugurate the first phase of this unique European project?
Fighting frost and rain this past December, JDL paved the way for the project and the open-air museum as intended by Street Art for Rights. With the fantastic support of a league of her peers, Spike, Smok, Marqus, Boogie, Joys and the stainless team of Street Art for Rights, she executed the biggest mural of Rome. Although it will be available temporarily for two years as the complex will be renovated under Italy’s National Recovery and Resilience Plan, the mural will however be immortalized and converted into an NFT, with proceeds donated to a neighborhood charity.
Judith de Leeuw alias JDL is a woman of few words, yet when she calls for the change that our world needs, she is unstoppable from the top of all international masonries. With her art, she speaks loudly and with many words, bringing forward the unseen, the unheard, the misunderstood, the sinful, the victim and the criminal, the innocent and the abused – all in a full-frontal artistic message that, if it does not push us to create the change we want for our world, it at least forces us to ask the most daring questions: who are those people on the wall, what is their story, and how can we together create the change that we need for our world?
As such, the female version of Icarus came to be.
Despite having been warned to fly neither too high nor too low to avoid burning his wings, Icarus became zealous once he had a taste of the rush and excitement, once he started reaching higher grounds. A blinded eagerness for more skies and higher altitudes that melted his wings under the sun, and cost him his life. A disproportionate ambition aligned with an unnecessary ego in one mural, to bring attention to the climate crisis.
The society we live in today is designed to be more efficient, producing bigger amounts with fewer tools. Small farmers are replaced by big factories, and horses by cars. Even though our society is designed with the best intentions, the climate crisis we live in today proves that our ambition and ego as humankind might have grown excessively, JDL writes.
Icarus, a woman under the vision of JDL, is freefalling. Her wings can no longer carry her. They are heavy with oil. Falling, falling…. fallen? Not yet. For she still may have a chance at life. She may still return to her skies, but only if she clears the oil out of her feathers and wings, only if she creates the change that she wants – and needs – for her world.
On this symbolic Snake building, Icarus, she, her, the woman, seems to also represent Mother Earth. Damaged, polluted, soiled and stained by the falling Man. Is there hope still for her?
JDL’s work strikes many chords. Yet the common denominator remains her connection with our modern world’s social prisons, these secluded and isolated neighborhoods that most of us prefer not to hear about – let alone step into. On this symbolic Serpentone building, she chose not to erase some of the inscriptions created at the base of her mural by the youth of Corviale. Another message she conveys to us as she brings the community from behind the dark walls of Corviale and out into the light, facing the world from the top of a 40-meter wall.
“Mother Earth is in pain!” her mural shouts.
“Ah, but don’t forget the falling angels”, JDL seems to be whispering…
