24 I’d like to start this conversation from a black and white photo taken by Tano D'Amico, which portrays you as a hippie: a teenager with a guitar and long, loose hair on her shoulders. What was in a nutshell and how did this little rebellious girl become an artist? There was certainly a search for something unstructured. In my being a hippie, at 17 years old, there was an inner freedom that is probably the only thing I feel connected to my personal art world that I created during this long period. I was always walking around with my guitar then, not just that one time. Singing helped me, as did playing. I was looking for something out of the box, living in a world of my own. I always had a vivid imagination that allowed me to accept reality and made it more and more fascinating. Going back in time, I remember that as a child I used to stand under the living room table, sometimes I would cover it to be isolated, and there I would cut paper, glue it, draw. And then life led me to make other choices for reasons linked to my family of origin, but surely even then there was this need to go beyond. What is the context in which that photograph was taken? It was taken in 1977. I went to demonstrate against the construction of the nuclear power plant in Montalto di Castro. On that occasion, I had taken part with the Living Theatre in a theatrical performance called La Peste. We were supposed to represent the harmful effects of nuclear energy on mankind by comparing it to the plague. Perhaps this was also the reason why Tano D'Amico noticed me! Then, for years, you set aside your artistic side, although you perceived creativity as an existential need... In my opinion, art represents the possibility of immersing myself in my inner journeys, in that magical silence made up of absence of space and time, and then I communicate to the outside world what arise from those journeys. My parents never accepted that I could enrol in art school or in the Accademia di Belle Arti, even though my father claimed that I had a special talent since I was a child: even if I was left alone in an empty room, I could create something. Nevertheless, he wanted me to study biochemistry at the Berkeley University in California to invent the “elixir of life”. A substance that would extend life, his life! I was naive because maybe I should have accepted that proposal and, once there, I could have dedicated myself to art. But I am not like that. In fact, I went to the United States as soon as I graduated from high school, in the summer of 1978, but without any support from my parents. In my innocence, I thought I could go GIUSY LAURIOLA interview by Manuela De Leonardis
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