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The visual section of
the “Documentaion centre of the Iblean popular life” is very
rich, consisting of 180-hours video, 12.000 slides, old photos,
b/w or colour negatives and several documentaries about work,
tradition, religious feasts and popular life, all realised by
Rosario Acquaviva.
Centro di
documentazione presso
la Chiesa di S. Giacomo (sec. XIX) - Ingresso
Centro di
documentazione - Sala proiezione,
incontri e mostre
Ufficio informazioni e
prenotazioni
The documentaries
available about agricultural work and transformation of goods
are:
The wheat cycle. Work and rituality
The movie shows the traditional work linked with the wheat
cycle: plowing with wooden plough, sowing, treshing by animals.
Men, work, songs and archaic rituality tell the community’s
story.
Wealth and fertility
Ripe wheat ears represent for the peasant wealth, chance of
survival and natural symbol of life, connected to the idea of
fertility. Peasants used to put some wheat ears in their home as
propitiatory sign.
The Sicilian water millstones: technique
and work
The movie shows the technical structures and milling historic
evolution: milling by stone-rubbing, Greek and roman millstone,
hydraulic millstone.
Memory tree
Pruning, harvesting and working olives
in old manual oil-mill with the millstone towed by the mule.
Wine-press: work ad techniques from past to present.
An historic excursus from Greek period to our days shows wine
production tools and techniques: grape harvest, transportation
by mules and pressing.
The documentaries
available about religious feasts are:
Saint Paul in Palazzolo Acreide: rituality
between past and present
Folklore, popular religion, magic as healing and the
ciarauli, men born in the night between 24th and 25th of
January or in 29th of June, who can talk with snakes and predict
future.
Saint Sebastiano in Melilli “Siemu vinuti
ri tantu luntanu”
During the night between the 3rd and the 4th
of May a lot of pious barefoot people come from every nearby
towns, towards Melilli.
Traditional Iblean Christmas
This video shows the handcraft work of
terracotta pasture (nativity figures), made by artisans
from Caltagirone, or wooden nativity figures made by Luigi
Caligiore. Traditional bread (nfasciatedda, pupidda,
cavadduzzu) and novena (traditional songs).
Traditional Easter
This video shows the Holy Week rituals:
processions, symbols, traditional bakery like bread with eggs.
The documentaries
available about crafts are:
The dish-repairer (Appuntapiatti)
This old craft, now disappeared, highlights
the deep poverty of lower classes which have to repair the
single plate they possessed. The last dish-repairer in Buscemi
was the popular poet Salvatore Morsello.
The tinker (Stagnataru)
The tinker used to go around repairing pots
and pans.
The blacksmith
An artificial cave, probably once an
underground Christian burial chamber, is the place where the
last blacksmith of Buscemi, Paolo Magro, worked till a few years
ago. In his work we can see the gestures of an ancient
tradition.
The tinsmith (lantirnaru)
The documentary shows two artisans from Modica
working tin plate. They still produce objects for household use,
employing traditional techniques: quartari (water
containers), cannili a pitroliu (oil lamp), stagnati
(little oil containers), rattaluri (graters).
The locksmith (ciavittieri)
This documentary shows the old locksmith
Michele Iacono, one of the last ciavitteri in Modica,
working in his little workshop.
The boiler maker (quarararu)
In his workshop mister Romanello still works
copper doing pots and pans by fire and hammer on the palu,
a shaped piece of iron.
Didactic
laboratory.
Popular
art section
