Simone Carraro’s work is strongly conditioned by the places and contexts with which he develops a relationship. Visual arts and musical performance are the mediums through which he symbolically transcribes landscape elements, bringing archaic worlds back to life and raising questions about future scenarios.
For Pietracamela, the artist evokes an imaginary ritual: the Sagra della Lucertola (Lizard Festival), a carnivalesque performance whose setting is the semi-abandoned village teeming with mosses and small reptiles. Here the human presence is linked to the memory of a past made of peasant songs, customs and rituals: symbols of a time when man was closely linked to the land, as plants and animals still are today.
Carraro wishes to create a sort of symbolic itinerary within the village where fleeting animal figures appear from time to time. Ephemeral apparitions that recall the nervous flight of reptiles in their spring awakening.
On the day of the inauguration, the public is accompanied along the entire route by performers and musicians playing instruments resembling lizards: sonorous sculptures created by the artist and re-installed in the village for the duration of the project. A percussion orchestra inspired by the instruments used in folk festivals. The act of rhythmically beating a surface is an ancestral emulation of the heartbeat and it is inevitably an integral part of life rituals.
This performative rite is reminiscent of carnivals in which the moment of celebration is an act of collective exorcism of the year that has passed. The lizard, quintessential inhabitant of the walls of abandoned houses, thus becomes the symbol of a noisy springtime vitality that defeats abandonment and keeps the village alive.
Animals and plants have always had symbolic power for peoples dedicated to agriculture, and in the artist’s project they become the new souls of the village.

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Exhibited works:
01. Simone Carraro, Vibrafono, 2023. Mixed media, wood, metals, bells, acrylic paint, 110 x 190 x 40 cm.
Belvedere Bruno Bartolomei

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02. Simone Carraro, Cajon a bretella con coda sonagliera in pelle, 2023. Mixed media, wood, rattle, leather, acrylic paint, 40 x 200 x 50 cm.
Belvedere Bruno Bartolomei

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03. Simone Carraro, Triccheballacche, 2023. Mixed media, wood, rattles, metals, 150 x 100 x 5 cm.
Via Aquilotti
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04. Simone Carraro, Sistro (coppia), 2023. Mixed media, wood, rattles, metals, 100 x 20 x 5 cm cad.
Via Sopratore