Women for Freedom: Art and Legality for Denied Rights on March 8th in Milan - The New Project of Claudia Conte
The creator and activist hosts the exhibition created with the support of BKR Member B&C Tax and B&C Legal (Milan), together with Gebbia Bortolotto Penalisti Associati, Merani Amministrativisti, and DT Revisione S.r.l. (Milan): "On a day so full of meaning, we give life to an event which, through the works of Iranian, Afghan, and Ukrainian sisters, tells of the risks borne by women who live in extreme contexts marked by persecutions and wars."
Milan, March 6, 2023 - Art and Law. Two seemingly distant, irreconcilable worlds.
For a special occasion like March 8, however, they met in Milan and joined forces in favour of women and their rights, too often denied even today in different parts of the world such as Iran, Afghanistan, or the war-ravaged Ukraine.
Women for Freedom, the new artistic format conceived and hosted by Claudia Conte, activist for women's rights, was held in an extraordinarily unusual location: to host the works of female artists from countries where being a woman can represent a risk and jeopardize personal safety, will in fact be the Milan office of B&C Tax and B&C Legal, firms operating in tax and legal consultancy, which support the initiative together with Gebbia Bortolotto Penalisti Associati, Merani Amministrativisti, and DT Revisione.
"March 8 is International Women's Rights Day, let's not call it a holiday, underlines Claudia Conte. A still huge number of women all over the world are in fact in search of justice and freedom. For this reason, on such a meaningful day, we are giving life to an event full of emotions which, through the works of Iranian, Afghan, and Ukrainian sisters, tells of the difficulties and risks of women who live to this day in extreme contexts marked by persecution and war. Intercultural dialogue is crucial to the reaffirmation of denied rights and to restore peace."
The exhibition, which will continue until April 11, 2023, involves works by Iranian artists Fariba Karimi, Pegah Pasyar, and Bahar Hamzehpour, by Afghan artist Tahmin Alizada, and by Ukrainian artist Tetyana Erhart. Also featuring is a lithography depicting the tapestry that young Italian artist Sebastiano Furlotti dedicated to Mahsa Amini, the Iranian girl whose life ended tragically due to a veil not worn correctly.
During the event, the short film by Carolina de' Castiglioni called Dodomu, una Casa Lontana da Casa, directed by Amaranta Medri, was screened: a project born from the will to give a voice to the numerous Ukrainian refugees who have arrived in Italy in recent months; more than 88,000 according to data from the Ministry of the Interior updated as at the first day of March 2023. Almost 49,000 minors arrived during the same period and just over 29,000 men. And Lombardy is the Italian region that has currently welcomed the largest number of people fleeing the war: 30,881, for a share of 17.98%.
The round table, moderated by the creator of the event, Claudia Conte, included: Luigi Carlo Filippini, B&C Tax senior partner; Maurizio Bortolotto, founding partner, Gebbia Bortolotto Penalisti Associati; Afghan activist Zahara Hamadi; Afghan activist Fatima Haidari, and Ukrainian artist and activist Alevtina Kakhidze of the Hope Ukraine Foundation.
"B&C Tax and B&C Legal strongly wanted to support this initiative as an official partner together with other players, comments Luigi Carlo Filippini, senior partner of B&C Tax. Legality and respect for rights are issues to which, given our role as professionals, we are very sensitive to, and also this year on the occasion of March 8, we considered it important to pay attention to the issue of women's rights in the year in which we celebrate 75 years of the Italian Constitution. By hosting this exhibition, we hope to give a sign of hope by giving space and voice to incredible artists who experience first-hand the need to defend their personal freedom, supporting them with our initiative to remove the obstacles that actually limit freedom, equality, and the full development of the human person (Articles 3 and 21 of the Italian Constitution)."
Journalist and LinkedIn top voice, Filippo Poletti, also took part in Women for Freedom, to present his book Ucraina: grammatica dell’Inferno, which focuses precisely on Ukrainian refugees one year after the start of the war.
"In this era of great cultural ferment – adds Maurizio Bortolotto, founding partner of Gebbia Bortolotto Penalisti Associati – a process of re-identification of the role of women in society is underway. It seems incredible that there are contexts where human rights are still under discussion and that women represent, unfortunately and still, the most penalized social category. The connection of these issues with legality is central, as is the need for a real awareness on the part of the institutions and the community. We believe that the immediacy of art is a powerful tool for denouncing the war crimes of which so much of the world's population is a victim, and we thank the Iranian, Afghan, and Ukrainian artists – absolute protagonists of the Women for Freedom project – for being spokespersons, through their extraordinary works, of a message that concerns the future of all of us."
Three Iranian artists, Fariba Karimi, Pegah Pasyar, and Bahar Hamzehpour, also attended the event, giving them the opportunity to tell, through their works of art, the suffering of perceiving their rights being violated in the land that gave them birth.
"Through cinema, books, an art exhibition, and the support of important professional firms – concludes Claudia Conte – we promote women's rights and help to understand, protect, and disseminate the values of social equality."
