People

IDs 2020 will offer three workshops in English:

• Maria Mazziotti Gillan

Interior and Exterior Landscapes: New Perspectives in an Ancient Land.

This writing intensive workshop will focus on the way travel enables us to see ourselves and our relationship to landscape in a new way, and to explore our own past and memories through this altered perspective. The writing can take the form of poetry, prose poems, memoir or some combination. What is important is the willingness to tell the truth and to be vulnerable. We will explore our own writing and make connections between ourselves and the other members of the group in an encouraging and supportive atmosphere. Individual courage leads to group courage - as well as to a celebration of the places we explore and the discoveries we will make about Calabria and the definitions of home and place.

• Mark Hillringhouse

Photographing Calabria, Its People and Places

This digital photography workshop focuses on helping program participants photograph people and places using the environment to capture moments in the day-in-the-life of an Italian town. Mark Hillringhouse introduces a camera technique that is a time tested, proven approach for making spontaneous and authentic photographs in the Cartier-Bresson spirit of capturing the “decisive moments” in daily life. He helps participants find a sense of purpose in their photography and pushes them to plug into their personal interests and passions to help them better share a visual response to their feelings and perceptions of the world around them.

Participants should have a digital camera, preferably a digital SLR or mirrorless camera, or a good point-and-shoot digital camera, and a way to upload or save their images on a laptop, tablet or smartphone.

• Margherita Ganeri

Reading to Write on the South of Italy

Reading and writing are mirror activities. A writer is always also a reader. The purpose of this workshop is to show how reading can stimulate inspiration to write. We will walk through a path of close readings of selected pages by two famous Italian novels: The Leopardby Giuseppe Tomasi and Christ Stopped at Eboliby Carlo Levi. We will address issues related to southern Italy and to the history of the Italian diaspora, passing through the suggestions of the places described in comparison with the places we will be inhabiting and visiting. The final destination of our literary tour will be Matera, mentioned in the masterpiece by Levi. Reading about, commenting on and visiting the places are three stages of the experiential learning that inspires the philosophy of IDs Writing Seminar, focused on building real and emotional experiences that inform the writing.

IDs 2020 will also offer, on a sign-up basis, two optional group activities held during free time:

Watercolor Workshop. With Linda Hillringhouse

• Impressions of Calabria

This informal workshop is unlimited in scope and style and will include painting from a photograph, from memory, from direct observation of a subject, and more. The subject matter will be dedicated to portraits, family history, scenery, architecture, representations of feelings connected to Calabria. The workshop facilitator will provide a list of possible painting subjects and will encourage participants to play, explore, take some risks. Supportive critiquing will be available, and an informal exhibit will be arranged for the final workshop.

🇮🇹 Conversational Italian Classes for Beginners and Intermediate. With Anna Clara Ionta and Marco Gatto

⭐ A series of guest speakers TBA.