Curated by Silvio Pasero, Alberto Mazzucchelli, Andrea Benzoni, Marco Pippione, Alberto Scotti, Silvana Ninivaggi, Tanino Musso, Giusi Corbella

Through videos, interviews, texts and photos this exhibition will tell the amazement for the extraordinary story of some Trappists of the monastery of Azer, in Syria, and friendship, born in a completely unpredictable, with people and experiences, of designers, donors, NGOs, AVSI and Banco Building of Milan. Almost twenty years ago some nuns of the abbey of Valserena joined the proposal of the Abbot General of the Order to give life to a cloistered convent in Syria, a land crossed by Peter and Paul, where in the first centuries of the Christian age the monastic experience was born, a region which at the dawn of the Third Millennium was an example of peaceful coexistence between peoples of different religions. With faith, patience and effort, the nuns settled in Azer, province of Homs – home of well-known dramatic events, not far from the border with northern Lebanon, in an inhabited area by Shiites and Sunnis, apart from two small Christian villages. In March 2010, the outbreak of war resulted in enormous devastation, endless deaths and an exodus of millions of people; from March 2020 Covid; then in September 2022 a cholera epidemic; finally in February 2023, the earthquake. In this long and dramatic period the nuns are never failed in their commitment to prayerful and free presence, continuing to be witnesses credible and a sign of hope for all. Even for us.