As the summer progresses the adventures of AtWork notebooks continue: the new Moleskine Café in Milano in Corso Garibaldi 65, is exhibiting the works of ten young creative talents coming from all over the world.
It will be the first of the series of shows at the café that wants to become the hub of creativity, while mixing the elements of art gallery, store and library with a place for encounters and conversations.
It will be a new important step of the journey: the Moleskine Café will become a heterochronic space, where the notebooks will offer the fragments of different geographies with no need to travel. The dimension of the international café littéraire in the heart of Milan will allow to showcase the multicultural richness of AtWork, while giving it the necessary time and breathing space to express itself fully, away from the hectic rhythms of our everyday lives.
We thought that such a particular context was a perfect space to give visibility to the works of young creative talents that we have encountered during various AtWork workshops implemented during the last years.
Each notebook will reveal a personal story that was born during the interactions with the other students at the workshops.
We will be able to follow the AtWork Lab Florence with the works of Leon Chong and Sofia Castaneda, which are respectively dedicated to a graphic and visual reflection on time and infinity of space and a practical attempt to return to the organic existence.
Alongside, there will be two notebooks from the pilot chapter of AtWork in Dakar: the one by Jean Kalaye Loua, dedicated to a visual description of the forms of freedom and equality, and the one by Ibrahima Ba that poses very topical questions: what constitutes a country’s identity? What is the role of frontiers today?
Next to them there will be the pages by Miriam Namutebi, AtWorker from Kampala, that with her piece “Self-reflection (my life)” has transformed her notebook into an introspective mirror composed of black and white images, telling us how AtWork workshop has changed her perception of herself; the one by Serge Nemlin from AtWork Abidjan that with his pencil and colors has interpreted a vision of the world through his existence and his passions.
And then there is a notebook of a young Samar Aleskafi, inspired by a reflection on the gathering point as the key to understand reality and the one by Tamadher Ali Alfahal that has gathered the words and faces of people met in ten years. Both notebooks come from the AtWork Lab Manama in Bahrain.
To complete the group there will be two young Italian artists that participated in Venice and Modena workshops: Melania Fusco with the piece called “Non so se te lo voglio dire” and Sara Vighi with “Una giornata particolare“.
The exhibition of these 10 selected notebooks is just the first one of many to come at the Moleskine Café in the future. A physical space where the digital and the analogical meet, a home that will continuously welcome our nomad notebooks from all over the world, allowing you to see them live and become part of the AtWork journey.
See you at the Moleskine Café!
Claude Bunny Massassa is a contemporary artist from Gabon. She created Bunny Studio in 2016, a start-up dedicated to photography production, which became DWABI Studio in 2021. As an artist, she has represented Gabon in many international exhibitions in Senegal, Uganda, France, the United States, and Italy. In her art, she denounces social stigmas around issues of identity and mental health, and explores themes of traditions and myths.
Executive Director Kimberly Aceves- Iñiguez has been passionately committed for over 20 years to social justice organizing and advocacy efforts that bring voice and power to youth, LGBTQ people, people of color, and working-class communities in the Bay Area. Before coming on as the Executive Director for RYSE, Kimberly served as the Executive Director for Youth Together, the founding organization of the RYSE Center.
Kanwarpal Dhaliwal is one of the co-founders of RYSE and currently acts as the Associate Director. She supports and guides the implementation and integration of healing-centered practices, grounded in racial justice and liberation, and also develops, promotes, and advocates for policies, investments, practices, and research that enliven healing, justice, and liberation. Kanwarpal believes that the purpose of her work and life is to contribute to movements, communities, and legacies of liberation that honor the ancestors who fought for her existence and survival, and to forge a world that is just and gentle for future generations.
Sagal Ali is the founder and executive director of SAF. After a few years in her career in heritage protection in the cultural sector, she decided to develop the initiative to directly support young creatives in Somalia by launching her own foundation. She hopes to bridge the social gaps and inequalities women face in Somalia, both in society and in the arts scene.
Co-founders Catherine Dunga and Marleen Palmaers created Kitambo to bridge the gap between the African diaspora in Colombia and the narratives from the continent. From Kinshasa and Antwerp respectively, they work to connect African artists from the continent and their peers from the Colombian diaspora.
Martha Kazungu is a curator, art Historian and Founder of Njabala Foundation, an organization that curates periodic exhibitions and organizes a public program of activities to create a safe space for female artists to thrive and blossom.
Alicia Hansen is a photographer and teacher from New York. She founded NYC SALT in 2008 and, beyond teaching valuable creative skills to her students, has developed a long-term support system to uplift them through school and into their early artistic careers.
