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Drew Lab2
Andrea Villanis, aka Drew Lab2, is a Neapolitan street artist who has lived in Berlin for almost 10 years. She described our project this way:
"In my imagination, Neapolitan Republic represents a container: the container of what, to my gaze, appears as a Proto-Naples 2.0.
Naples is a city of a thousand shades, my city, even though I haven't lived there for over 15 years. It has been born and reborn from its ashes many times, it is precarious yet immortal, it sits at the foot of a volcano, it is multicultural, irreverent, and thousands of years old (we were built by the Cumaeans in the 8th century BC).
Over the millennia, much has been written, sung, said, and painted about Naples. In recent years, the city has clearly reached a new stage in its transformation, and every transformation inherently presupposes forgetfulness. The great insight of a project like Neapolitan Republic is its desire to help guide this transformation: while maintaining a connection to tradition, the project seeks to provide the city with a new perspective and new words for and about itself, and to do so, it chooses to begin with artists.
From those who love Naples near or far, forever or just now, from those born and raised here and those who have just discovered it: from the eyes and mouths of artists from all over the world and from all disciplines. In a world where everyone is closing borders, Naples opens its doors once again... the Siren enchants once again !
ANDREA and NEAPOLITAN REPUBLIC
For us, Andrea created three caligraffiti that are also mandalas, a prayer for our city. The mandala, in fact, is a very powerful spiritual symbol/exercise, which focuses attention and defines a sacred space that aids meditation. If we look at the meaning of the word Mandala , we see that it is translated as circle or even center, that is, an essential and geometric representation of the world/cosmos, a sort of cosmogram that is structured in a very precise way.
Symbolically, the outer ring of the mandala is a kind of barrier of fire that burns away ignorance; the next ring symbolizes enlightenment, then a ring of leaves evokes spiritual rebirth; at the center of this last circle is the actual mandala with the images of the gods.
Andrea manipulated this structure, composing mandalas with words, because words create and establish: Naples is language, words, theater, music, and sound! Here they are below: Vesuvio, Storia, and Neapolis .
