Alice Primo, Italy

“I'm looking for an experience to question myself, to change my beliefs about me and the world, and

that can give birth to new skills and aspects of my personality, but also to new collaborations.

I'm looking for an educational experience in all respects, obviously improving my bad English, but

above all, I want to dedicate myself to an inspired project that has a positive and beneficial impact on people.”

These words come out from my cover letter presentation and when I wrote that really I couldn’t imagine how they came be real. Hi, I am Alice from Italy and I’m really happy to participate to this program.

Culture Unites is giving me a good chance to reorganize my future ideas and this is the biggest gift that I’m receiving from this program. I’m here for three months and it already passed 1 months and half and I speak in English every day, I create a dreamcatcher workshop in two different cities, I participated in recoding a video clip in the middle of the city, I invented games for the teenagers, I made a presentation about Italy in front of Bulgarian, Polish, French, Egyptian and Portugal people, I participated in a photo shooting, I worked with a lot of different material, plastic, iron, paint and fabric to create festivals of art, I met councilors and mayors of two different cities, I participated in a gospel concert and a gay pride, I talked in front of the classes about me and the reason because I’m here. The list is very long and nothing it was possible without the support and the force of the other volunteers and ours tutors. This new big family that in this period give me the liberty to be myself in the modality that I didn’t know before, with all my up and downs moments, with all my insecurities, my silence moments, my tears, my crazy emotions and never they give me just an only suspect that I was wrong or judged. I’m so grateful for that, it all change my mind, I don’t feel fear to the world anymore and to the different that characterized the people and I’m not afraid to explain my reasons and to be wrong.

I’m very grateful for our Team and for Culture Unites Project.

It was a very normal day when I came back to Hub-a, our working space, from my lunch break that I’ll received a notice; we were all invited to the gospel concert in the capital city. I’ve never been to the gospel concert before, I know the kind of music but the concert is different, is full of emotions.

In the Lumerie place, in Sophia, was full of people and we had to sit on the stairs, but when the three women, the singers, arrived with their colorful dresses and with big smiles all people started to claps and the seat wasn’t important anymore. Their voices were so nice, warm and happy that I couldn’t control my emotions and I started to cry. I’ve never cried so much like I cry in Bulgaria and at the beginning was weird and embarrassing, now I feel that it’s so important for me to free my emotions with the tears and I like it. The gospel music is a hymn to God and his power, and yes, the music and the lyrics were amazing but the thing that I liked the most was the women’s spirit; they really believed in what they were singing and they loved to do it. The atmosphere in the room became joyful, happy and light. All the public started to dance and sing. One of the singer invited the people to go to the stage and dance and in few minute the stage become a big party and celebration. There were no choirs, singers, musicians, and audiences, but people who enjoyed it all together.

It was a great concert.

Workshops

During the STREET ART FESTIVAL in Troyan I had, for the second time (the first was in LAGO FEST in Samokov) the possibility to made the dreamcatcher workshop with children and teenagers. I never done a workshop like that in Italy before and for me was a very interesting challenge to give to others something about me in an artistic way. The past two years were very intense and hard. I’m changed a lot and I asked to myself the kind of person I want to became and what I can do to change my life and to be useful for the other people. I discovered the dreamcatcher one rainy night, it was a very bad day because I didn't like my work and I felt sad, alone and lost. I walked under the rain when I saw this funny symbol inside a car and I liked it. It was small blue and brown and I started to watch the tutorial in youtube. Making the dreamcatchers makes me peaceful and serenity, and in that moment helped me a lot. So when I saw these young people in Troyan enjoyed to create it, tried a lot of time to find the correct cross and to invented different combinations of colors, took my instructions, my indications and to created something different with their personality mark; for me was the biggest result and gift that I could receive from this experience.

Finally, thanks to Piotrek who with his simplicity helped me to realized that my ideas, my art can work and to be useful for the people. He helped me to trust in my art expression and to be proud of it.