The Diplomat
The director of the Instituto Cervantes, Luis García Montero, and the Spanish ambassador to Italy, Alfonso Dastis, inaugurated yesterday in Rome the project El paisaje recobrado. Spanish exiles in Rome, a tribute to Rafael Alberti and Maria Teresa Leon, who lived in exile for fourteen years in the Italian capital.
The project consists of two works by artists Miki Leal and Clara Montoya -former residents of the Royal Academy of Spain Rome- and located on the staircase of the Via Crucis, which connects the headquarters of this institution with Via Garibaldi. “This is a site of great symbolism, because due to the veto of Franco’s regime the authors honored, Rafael Alberti and Maria Teresa Leon, were not allowed access to the Royal Academy of Spain Rome during their stay in the city,” said the Cervantes.
This project, which commemorates the 120th anniversary of the birth of the poet from Cadiz, is part of the initiative launched by the Cervantes Institute in Rome, the Royal Academy of Spain in Rome and the Cultural Council of the Embassy of Spain in Italy in order to honor the memory of Spanish exiles refugees in the Italian capital after the Civil War.
Miki Leal (Seville, 1974) is the author of the work Esclavo del pavimento (Slave of the pavement), a mosaic inspired by the very activity of wandering around the city that takes as its title some verses from the first book of Rafael Alberti’s Roman period, Roma, peligro para caminantes (Rome, danger for walkers, 1968). Meanwhile, Clara Montoya Vozmediano (Madrid, 1974) develops in a corner overlooking the Trastevere -Roman neighborhood where the couple of writers lived-, the installation Estudio 31. A studio for Maria Teresa Leon, thus creating the workspace that the author never had in the Italian city.
