Bridges of Culture
- marysia
- Jun 4
- 14 min read
The Rhizomatic Nature of Relationships
by Patrizia Poggi, Ravenna
For me, building bridges of culture is essential for overcoming geographical, linguistic, and ideological barriers, and to foster mutual understanding, peace, and social and economic development. It is a slow but powerful work, and as the German philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer stated, “Culture is the only asset of humanity that, when divided between us all, becomes greater rather than smaller.”
Art is an extraordinary vehicle for universal themes because it transcends the limits of verbal language, time, and cultural barriers, reaching directly into emotion and intellect. It works as a code shared by humanity, because it communicates through symbols, colours, sounds, and forms that elicit intuitive responses, even before rational ones.
A few examples? Picasso’s Guernica conveys the horror of war even to those who don’t know the history of Spain. Michelangelo’s Pietà expresses the universal grief of a mother. Banksy uses street art to denounce global injustices.
This text of mine would not have been written had it not been for Marysia Zipser’s customary generous willingness to host me on her Art Culture Tourism blog, for which I am grateful.
The opportunity arose from the presence in Ravenna of the British artist Barbara Howey from Norwich, who was visiting the city for the first time. Barbara Howey is associated with the GroundWork Gallery in King’s Lynn (UK), directed by Veronica Sekules, whom I met last November in Venice during the International Art Biennale. GroundWork Gallery’s mission is to involve artists, scientists, environmentalists, and local communities in projects that combine creativity and ecological research, promoting exhibitions to stimulate reflection on how art can help interpret and respond to themes related to nature, the climate crisis, and the human-environment relationship. It is the UK’s point of reference for eco-art.
A few days before Barbara’s arrival, Veronica sent me this message:
“Hi Patrizia, my friend Barbara Howey – a very good artist – will be visiting Ravenna between the 8th and 13th of May, and I wonder if you might like to meet her. It’s her first time there and she’d really appreciate your local and historical knowledge!”
I met Barbara at Palazzo Galletti Abbiosi, an ancient noble residence in the heart of Ravenna. After some initial small talk, I asked: “Barbara, what brought you to Ravenna?”
Barbara:
My initial reason for visiting Ravenna was a long held desire since my student days to visit the mosaics. I had read of their unrivalled beauty and of their art historical importance especially in relation to the later development of painting. I have visited Italy many times in relation to the beauty and history of its art and culture but also because of its landscape.
Patrizia:
Her response intrigued and inspired me. Romagna and Norfolk, both facing the sea—one on the Adriatic, the other on the North Sea. Ravenna and Norwich, with flat, humid landscapes shaped by rivers and land reclamation, intensive agriculture, and adaptation to marshy terrain, with a cultural identity rooted in rural history and folk traditions.
Norwich, panorama of Cromer pier. Photo credit: Mike Johnson Norfolk Countryside Photos (NCP);
Norwich, windmill. Photo credit: Mike Johnson NORFOLK COUNTRYSIDE PHOTOS (NCP);
Norwich, Sand dunes boardwalk at Holkham beach. Photo credit: John Rasberry COUNTRYSIDE PHOTOS (NCP);
Norwich, Cathedral. Photo credit: Kenneth Liyanage NORFOLK COUNTRYSIDE PHOTOS (NCP).
Ravenna and Norwich, both UNESCO cities. Ravenna for its early Christian monuments, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, testifying to its role as the capital of the Western Roman Empire, the Ostrogothic Kingdom, and the Byzantine Exarchate; Norwich, the first English city designated a "City of Literature" by UNESCO in 2012, thanks to its vibrant cultural environment and literary tradition, including the University of East Anglia, renowned for its creative writing courses. Ravenna is the city of Dante Alighieri, where he spent the last years of his life and completed the Divine Comedy, including the Paradiso canticle.
Both cities boast rich musical traditions and festivals. Ravenna has hosted the Ravenna Festival since 1990, which aims to promote culture as a tool for dialogue, hope, and social transformation, combining music, theatre, dance, and civic reflection in a multidisciplinary program. The 2025 theme, "Donde hay música no puede haber cosa mala" (Cervantes) — "Where there is music, there can be no evil" — reflects the commitment to exploring contemporary courage—no longer warrior-like but civil, creative, and spiritual. The performances, from Verdi’s choruses conducted by the Maestro Riccardo Muti to theatrical shows on Don Quixote, aim to inspire resilience and empathy. The Maestro lives in Ravenna.
Norwich is home to the Norfolk & Norwich Festival, one of England’s oldest arts festivals, active since 1824 with roots dating back to 1772. Its mission is to foster creativity, inclusion, and social transformation through a multidisciplinary program of performing and visual arts, blending history and avant-garde.
And in art? Both traditions depict the landscape as a spiritual (Ravenna) or idyllic (Norfolk) element, with attention to water and vegetation. In Ravenna, the Byzantine mosaics depict symbolic landscapes: paradisiacal gardens, rivers (Jordan), stylized trees (palms, pomegranates). The art reflects the importance of water and fertility, with Eastern influences.
In Norfolk, the English painting tradition (e.g. John Constable, though associated with Suffolk) portrays rural landscapes, vast skies, and waterways. Ravenna has a more monumental heritage (Byzantine basilicas, mosaics), while Norfolk offers a more “romantic” and wild landscape—but both reflect a centuries-old dialogue between humans and nature.
Ravenna, Mausoleum of Galla Placidia first half of the 5th century AD (after 426 AD) UNESCO World Heritage Monument;
Ravenna, Basilica of San Vitale, 6th century AD, UNESCO World Heritage Monument;
Ravenna, the Orthodox Baptistery (or Neonian), probably dates back to the beginning of the 5th century, UNESCO World Heritage Monument;
Ravenna, Basilica of Sant’Apollinare Nuovo, 6th century AD, UNESCO World Heritage Monument.
I therefore proposed to Barbara that she visit the Basilica of San Vitale, Galla Placidia, the Neonian Baptistery, Sant’Apollinare Nuovo, Sant’Apollinare in Classe and the following day, the surrounding environment. I explained that Ravenna lies in a wetland area, between lagoons, canals, and the Po Delta. This marshy landscape, transformed into a vital force by humans, directly influenced the art of its mosaics. The mosaic colors: gold, green, blue reflect the shimmering light of the waters and low skies of the Po Plain. The use of gold in the mosaic surfaces is not only a divine symbol, but also evokes the glancing light of the lagoons, creating an effect of transcendence. In Ravenna, the landscape becomes art: a place where history, geography, and spirituality merge into a unique visual language..
Barbara:
What a fabulous way to get to know Ravenna! The Mausoleum of Galla Placidia is a wonderfully simple brick building on the outside and a dazzling embrace of refracted light and color dancing through the mosaics inside. Unfortunately, my visit was too rushed due to the number of visitors and the limited time allowed, but I went again twice and would love to return when all the crowds have gone and have the place to myself.
The Neonian Baptistery, with the baptism of Christ, is an example of how architectural space becomes an “icon of the cosmos”. The Basilica of San Vitale, a masterpiece of 6th-century Byzantine art, unites theology, imperial power, and cosmic symbolism. It’is a unicum where Roman symbolism: the central plan, Byzantine abstraction: gold as uncreated light and transfigured nature, animals and plants as divine signs all merge.
And what about Sant’Apollinare in Classe? Our visit to the church of Sant'Apollinare in Classe was much more rewarding and extraordinary. Mainly Because of its location just outside Ravenna there were no crowds and we could look to our hearts content. The interior of the building itself was like an outdoor space spacious and airy with lofty tree like columns which acted like a majestic framework for the incomparable mosaics which depicted with such artistry, delicacy and sumptuous colour the plants and animals found in the area. The saint’s coat was strewn with bees. I had the feeling that the artists who created this space must have had deep knowledge, love, and understanding of the interconnectedness of the natural world.
Ravenna, Basilica of Sant’Apollinare in Classe, UNESCO World Heritage Monument;
Ravenna, the Orthodox Baptistery (or Neonian), probably dates back to the beginning of the 5th century, UNESCO World Heritage Monument;
Ravenna, Mausoleum of Galla Placidia, UNESCO World Heritage Monument.
Patrizia:
Professor Giulio Carlo Argan (1909–1992), a prominent Italian art critic and historian, wrote in his book L’arte italiana (Sansoni, 1968) that to fully understand Ravenna’s art, one must first immerse themselves in its surrounding environment. Ravenna’s art, especially late antique and Byzantine, is not an isolated phenomenon, but a symbolic and physical product of its geographic, historical, and cultural context. Here, art and territory are inseparable.
Therefore, visiting Ravenna’s environment: its waters, its light, its frontier history, is essential, because here art is not decoration but a transfiguration of reality. The mosaics are not merely sacred images: they are landscapes turned into symbols, history made eternal. Ravenna is a prime example of how art emerges from a dialogue with the territory: without understanding Ravenna’s humid geography, one cannot grasp why its mosaics seem to “float” in the light; without knowing its frontier history, one cannot appreciate the syncretism in its imagery; without sensing the spirituality of the place, the art remains decoration, not a total experience.
Barbara:
The landscape of Norfolk where I live is a landscape of eroding sandy cliffs and sand spits. It faces out to the North Sea on the East of England and inwards to the marshes and wetlands of the Norfolk broads. It is a flat and airy landscape home to many bird species. Historically it had an important fishing industry, mostly herring which no longer exists but there is still local crab fishing in places like Cromer. Much of the marsh landscape was drained by the Dutch canal and dyke system and is dotted with water pumps and windmills. Today’s landscape has suffered from over commercial and Industrial development especially in Great Yarmouth but there are still some places of outstanding natural beauty left in many parts of North Norfolk. But even here erosion, bad agricultural practices, exploitative woodland management and over development (ill advised road building and housing developments in unsuitable areas of rich biodiversity) has led to species and insect decline. The impacts of climate change will, scientists have predicted, lead to much land loss in East Anglia due to rising sea levels.
Strumpshaw Fen, Norfolk - Flag irises, Strumpshaw Fen - Strumpshaw Fen. All photos by Barbara Howey
Saturday, May 10, we left Ravenna and its monuments to continue our visit to the Valley, heading to Comacchio—one of the most fascinating destinations of the Po Delta. The territory of the Valleys is part of the “Po Delta Biosphere,” a UNESCO-recognized heritage site. The town of Comacchio, lush and surrounded by lagoons, is considered the small capital of the Delta Park. It is known for its historical heritage linked to fishing and lagoon-based economy. Comacchio is the gateway to a unique ecosystem, with boat itineraries through canals and forests like the Mesola Wood and medieval abbeys such as Pomposa abbey. It is a habitat for flamingos, herons, black-winged stilts, and over 300 bird species, an ideal spot for birdwatching. Unique: a labyrinth of canals, salt pans, and reed fishing huts, explorable by boat, bicycle, or on foot.
Barbara:
Wonderful scenery and gorgeous surroundings! The beautiful landscape of the Po delta and a visit to Comacchio with its marsh landscape and working class community which reminded me so much of parts of Norfolk. I even saw the same plant species flag Iris (Iris pseudacorus) growing in the wetlands. My current paintings focus on local plants such as Flag Iris, Reed mace, Hemp Agrimony and Purple Loosestrife found in the marshlands dotted around Norwich where I live.
Pialassa Baiona Photo credit:: Ravenna tourism Comacchio - birds in the valley
There is an artistic heritage in Norfolk to this landscape caught by the 19th century Norwich School of Painters such as John Chrome and John Sell Cotman whose work is housed in the Norman castle museum and gallery in Norwich. There is also a thriving contemporary art scene which focuses on the environment and as mentioned by Patrizia has found a home in GroundWork Gallery in King’s Lynn run by Veronica Sekules. At the time of writing this there is an exhibition called Plant Power which I co-curated with the late Dr Judith Tucker and Veronica Sekules for GroundWork Gallery which features artists working in different media including painting, video, sculpture, installation and collage all focusing on the importance of Plants.
In conversation with Patrizia I was wondering if there were any contemporary artists working in Ravenna whose work focused on landscape?
Patrizia:
Certainly. I arranged a meeting with the eco-artist Mariella Busi De Logu at the Dis-Ordine Gallery, where her solo exhibition “Botanical Tables” was being held as homage to the arrival of King Charles III and Queen Camilla in Ravenna and to the celebration of the 80th anniversary of the city’s liberation from Nazi-Fascist troops. On April 10, 1945, the towns of Alfonsine and Fusignano were liberated by British and Canadian troops; four months earlier, on December 4, 1944, Ravenna had also been liberated. Today, the city hosts two British war cemeteries: one in Villanova di Bagnacavallo and another in the Piangipane district, 6 km from the city.
Mariella Busi De Logu’s artistic research is a multidisciplinary journey combining visual poetry, ecology, historical and feminine memory, writing, and actions with a powerful focus on the relationship between humans and nature. She develops an “ecological consciousness” rooted in the observation of nature since childhood, which she expresses in works exploring both the fragility and resilience of ecosystems. Her botanical tables and installations reflect on environmental degradation and the sacredness of the natural world. She brings forgotten women of history back into the light, like Hildegard of Bingen or Anicia Juliana, through works that celebrate their knowledge. She builds a bridge between past and present, where ecology, memory, and experimentation intertwine in a unique language. She is often described as a “contemporary herbaria.”
But what does it mean to be a herbaria today? Mariella explores the historical figure of the wise medieval women, venerated by the people but feared by the authorities, to the point of being burned at the stake as guardians of dangerous knowledge. A cruel ritual aimed at erasing female wisdom. Redefining the role of women and the value of their expertise, rediscovering the depth of ancient medicine and its connection to natural rhythms, shedding light on the wisdom buried by history: these are the living souls of the Herbariae.
Barbara:
I was thrilled to meet and admire the works of Ravenna-based artist Mariella Busi De Logu, who had created an exhibition of paintings inspired by Ravenna’s historic plants. Thanks to my host’s translations, I was able to better understand her creative process. Seeing and relating her work to my own painterly interests and to the work of contemporary artists in East Anglia was truly moving.
Patrizia:
And for me, it’s incredible to discover the red thread that connects these two artists! Barbara Howey paints plant species observed during her daily walks through suburban areas, woods, and roadside edges, capturing their ephemeral vitality. Her works, created using a wet-on-wet technique, emphasize the precariousness of these life forms, threatened by deforestation and pollution. The subjects, though inspired by real life, are reinterpreted in vivid colours: earthy greens, bright tones, and gestural marks oscillating between figuration and abstraction creating a dialogue between scientific observation and emotional expression. She primarily uses oil and watercolour, favouring organic textures and splashes of colour that evoke the spontaneous growth of plants. She has a gestural approach, painting quickly, allowing drips and imperfections to remain visible, in order to convey the energy and unpredictability of nature. She takes photographs of the plants during her explorations, then transforms them into works that reflect both the beauty and the vulnerability of ecosystems.
Barbara Howey artworks
Marsh-late Summer with reed mace, oil on board, 51x41cm, 2024; Purple loosestrife, 29x35cm, 2024;
Marsh-late September, oil on board, 51x41cm, 2024;
Flag irises, Thorpe Marshes, oil on board, 51x41cm, 2025; Early November-burst seed pods, oil on board, 28x35cm, 2024; L-R, Barbara Howey, Mariella Busi De Logu, Patrizia Poggi.
Her paints are a political act, denouncing human blindness to our dependence on plants, even though they are essential for survival. She merges expressionist painting, environmental activism, and academic research, creating works that are both a hymn to nature and a warning about its destruction. Her work is a bridge between contemporary art and global urgencies, rendered in a vibrant, immediate visual language.
Mariella Busi De Logu explores the origins of the world by referencing medieval manuscripts and ancient feminine knowledge, recording the memory of nature. Like a medieval scribe, she transcribes ecological knowledge that risks disappearing. Her visual writing becomes an act of preservation and transmission.
Barbara Howey paints the world at the moment of its disappearance. Her painting captures plant species precisely as they are being marginalized by urbanization—each brushstroke is both document and elegy, fixing in place what might soon vanish. Her artistic gesture becomes a last-minute rescue mission.
While science analyzes and politics debate, the art of these two artists trains us to perceive ecological relationships. It transforms data into emotional experiences, weaving new imaginaries for inhabiting a dying world. Their research is a kind of “final tool” that suggests an urgency: when other languages fail, art retains the possibility to safeguard memories, mark losses, and foreshadow rebirths.
Mariella Busa De Logu artworks
Ravenna, ravenna, 2011, china, cm 21x29,7;
Grandi Pagine, Lanternaria, 2014, cm 180x90;
Grandi Pagine, Conversazione con Hildegard von Bingen, 2004,;
Il Luogo degli Dei, Tetrattile, 1987-2024;
Ravenna, ravenna, 2014, matita e collage, cm 29,7x21;
Lilium martagon, 2000, acquerello su carta a mano 185 gr/m², cm 76x56.
When Mariella recreates a botanical table inspired by the 6th century, she’s not doing archaeology, she’s showing how that knowledge might save us today. When Barbara paints a weed growing through asphalt, she documents an adaptability that might inspire our own survival. Their art does not merely represent nature, it interprets its secret language, offering us a vocabulary for understanding —and perhaps transforming — our relationship with life today. It is an act of both resistance and awakening.
In the work of Mariella Busi De Logu and Barbara Howey, I find a deep and evocative connection with the thought of James Hillman as expressed in his posthumous book “The Last Image”, in conversation with Silvia Ronchey (Rizzoli, 2021).
The dialogue between James Hillman and Silvia Ronchey began in September 2008, the very month of the Wall Street crash and was inspired by the images of Ravenna’s mosaics. Ravenna carries a powerful symbolic and archetypal significance: it is the beauty that emerges from the end. The Roman Empire, aware that it was nearing the end of its history, created Ravenna’s basilicas and mosaics using green and blue, using nature.
In the moment of the great Western collapse, in Sant’Apollinare in Classe there is the epiphany of the green world. From the beginning, we set out to understand which images human beings of the fifth century, at the time of the fall of the Western Roman Empire, used to counter the anxiety of the end during that moment of immense destruction. They used the great green image, and it’s magnificent, because it means that the same imagination, the Green Way, runs through all of human history. They used nature, the natural world. Trees, animals, plants, flowers, fields, the fertility of the world. If we look closely, what matters is not architecture, but nature, the flock, the green world as future salvation. The blue globe above the flock immersed in greenery.
James Hillman:
The Blue Globe. This is what we must protect: our mother, our sacred land, our planet, our diversity. And in front of this image rises our most profound environmental calling, because it speaks to us as an almost religious encounter with beauty.
The world is so beautiful, we must let it bloom. There are green fields and animals. This is what the artists who once painted that same image in Ravenna saw the sweetness and splendor of the world we all inhabit together, sheep and saints, humankind and nature. And I believe this is the only true motivation to save the Earth that can truly unite us. It is the strongest of all reasons, because the others, economic or technological, don’t stir the soul in the same way. The sight of the mosaics in the apse of Sant'Apollinare in Classe carries a force that mere survival logic lacks. Beauty is a far more compelling plea, for beauty calls forth love. And it was that plea I saw on that wall in that blue globe, in the green pastures of paradise.
King Charles visits the Basilica di San Vitale, Ravenna, Italy. Photo: Getty Images. King Charles and Queen Camilla at Dante's Tomb, Getty Images
Patrizia:
If for James Hillman “the task of the soul is to imagine the world,” then Mariella Busi De Logu fulfills this through ritual writing like a modern priestess of Gaia and Barbara Howey through painting as a secular prayer. Their research embodies Hillman’s invitation to “see the world with the eyes of the soul”—not to commemorate it, but to activate that “soul-making” that might, perhaps, save it.
Patrizia Poggi
Ravenna, June 1, 2025
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Patrizia Poggi contact: Ambassador of Knowledge and Flavours for Italia&Friends, Florence
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Getting to Ravenna from the UK: Several UK airports offer direct flights to Rimini (RMI) (one hour to Ravenna), with Ryanair, easyJet and British Airways being the main airlines. Specifically, direct flights to Rimini are available from London Stansted, London Gatwick, London Heathrow, and potentially from other airports as well later in 2025 and in 2026.
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