Here is one of the many participants of the fourth edition of the Ratatà Festival, which takes place from the 20th to the 23rd of April. It’s a collective under the name MaPerò. We decided to ask them a few nosey questions to get you to know them. Enjoy!
Introduce yourself and your work.
There are things that everyone considers wrong and inappropriate. We funded MaPerò because of this feeling of uprising towards the things you’re not supposed to say or do. For what concerns our name, the union of the two conjunctions “ma” and “però”, which both mean “but”, the Accademia della Crusca specifies: “For clarification we can say that the use of both conjunctions “ma però” together is not to be condemned, despite what grammatical traditions and school education affirm.” Dante Alighieri has also used the words “ma però”, and kids do too.
What is the distinctive trait of your artistic work?
In our work, we try to deal with issues that are important to us. We try to do that is a way that’s simple and fun. What we want to do while drawing is to have fun. We enjoy playing by finding new ways to tell a story. For instance, our first volume is composed of a case containing 32 illustrations of daily life objects transformed into other things – so forks become table vehicles, barbeques become clothes dryers.
How do you get your ideas? What is your source of inspiration?
Our work rises from the need to say what we think without having problems. These ideas don’t come from a desk, but they come when strolling down a street, walking the dog, cycling in Bologna.
We care about grammar accused of being incorrect, about things that are just the way they’ve always been, about umbrellas tired of being above our heads, about clouds that are supposed to be in the sky, about square roots that can’t be planted, about Gianni Rodari, Bruno Munari, Leo Lionni, Fischli e Weiss.
Why did you decide to take part in the Ratatà festival?
We like Ratatà festival because it’s the best festival of self-publishing in Italy, because when it rains outside it brings you a warm pasta, and because it has awesome exhibitions.