1. How was  born the idea of the Manifesto with Morin ?

The idea to write this manifesto was born by Gonod Pierre, Edgar Morin and me a sense of urgency to act before the fact for the world and the feeling of impending disaster (paranoia criticism or lucidity). And that the crisis was not only a systemic financial crisis,  we have also been preceded by a call by the Caribbean intellectuals during the riots in Guadeloupe. (note that these alerts do not come only from a Western capital, but odds exotic, like the insurgency coming from the suburbs marginalized …)

2. What ’s the message perceived by the world from your art?

I do not know how “the world” sees my art. I know that Edgar Morin, that is also an expert in contemporary visual arts, received in my creative process, and maybe in my personal adventure, my past history, and political commitment to practice my “art” — my artivists “- a metaphor for the principle of metamorphosis (the Greek poeïsis).

3. Your Manifesto for the Metamorphosis of the World has proposed “7 main guidelines” (political reform, politics of humanity and civilization, economic reform, social reform, reform of thought, education reform, reform of life, moral reform) to change our doldrums world. What do you answer to the most likely critic that it could result too much “utopian”?

Much of the criticism of the events on its side so-called “utopian”. I admit to myself that the happy side of a messianic “appeal” to annoy the most pessimistic readers and those who accomodate every day the humanity running towards the abyss. However, it would be utopian to believe that we could go longer on that road and that the speech “refounding” of a system in collapse is totally irresponsible. We do not rebuild the Berlin Wall or the Twin Towers in New York (otherwise known as World Trade Center, which in my opinion, was actually the target attacked by terrorists …). Furthermore, it is not proposed in this text the desire for global governance.

The manifesto is written at a time in history when humanity is at a crossroads – where the issue of its survival as humankind is raised. A dramatic conclusion is drawn because of observation errors, and proposed routes (which are not proposals for a political program) are those we think should be followed to understand the complexity of the world and humanity, even if our insight leads us to believe that the possibilities of metamorphosis, if real, are unlikely. We are in full dystopia …

For me, if we were on the road to utopia (and if this was utopia pirate), I feel in very good company with Edgar Morin and Pierre Gonod …

4. Do you think that the metamorphosis process starts first from the single deep consciousness (individual process) or is it a collective process influencing the individuals like a “meme”?

As stated in the manifesto, the process of metamorphosis can be described as the sum of actions and feedback of individual and collective initiatives. We can obviously not predict long term what emerges, but the restoration of human rights or its destruction. We know that this process exists, even in human societies the more traditional (as opposed to the modern term), and that history teaches us that “every innovation, every creation starts with an extremely small deviation, sometimes concentrated in one individual which, if it manages to protect and spread, eventually becomes a powerful historical force, “to quote Edgar Morin. The manifesto is both a prophecy of chaos and a call to engage in ways of knowledge, understanding and put into practice individual and collective to trigger a process of metamorphosis (and not to build a new system of beliefs) .

5. Has your art experienced a greater inspiration in your choice of living in Polynesia? If yes why?

I’m sensible to my environment daily and often times I had to wear my eye on the horizon.

Beyond my own psycho-geographic drift alone on a boat sailing for years since my departure from the port of Ortigia, I am also confronted with another culture, an otherness that helped me at least help me to know myself.

Furthermore, the discovery of a fundamental and characteristic element of the Polynesian culture, the “mana” that can be translated as “presence”, a research oriented towards the singular expression of this “presence” or more precisely the “presence of absence” rather than me make a “representation” more or less false, more or less clever, as in Western art. My expressionism is “shamanic” in that it attempts to survey my highlight and confront me directly to a primal (and do not see any desire for transcendence – the man will not be exceeded). My artistic practice is “imaginalis”, to borrow a word by Avicenne, because it opens gold” doors ” …

Finally, it is not surprising from a historical and political, that the overthrow of the world to be able to learn from the antipodes, and margins of our continental cities …

Copyright 2009 – BRAIN 2 BRAIN – Ivonne Citarella