UNESCO Chair Director awards mother for heroic embodiment of respect for vulnerable life at Rome art foundation event
Alberto Garcia, Director of the UNESCO Chair of Bioethics and Human Rights, presented an award to Maria Grazia, loving mother of a daughter in vegetative state, for her heroic testimony of respect for vulnerable human life at the recent Fondazione Marianna event in Rome, Italy November 2012.
Garcia spoke of Maria Grazia has embodied article 8 of UNESCO´s Universal Declaration of Human Rights through her sacrificial devotion to her daughter Maria Angela, whose vegetative state has demanded full-time attention for more than 16 years. On behalf of the UNESCO Chair, Garcia recognized that respect for the vulnerable is not a mere abstract concept, but rather a life-changing value that Maria Grazia´s example challenges each of us to incarnate in our daily actions.
An audience of nearly 200 persons joined a renowned panel of artistic, municipal, and intellectual leaders in the Eternal City to celebrate Maria Grazia´s witness and welcome the foundation´s 15th annual calendar (click here to view the calendars).
The calendar, rich in art and meditative text, reflects the foundation´s dedication to the promotion of human rights through the arts. Pinuccia Pitti, president of the group, has gained a reputation in Rome for thought-provoking artistic works diverse in their expression, yet unified in their treatment of the dignity of the human person. Visit here for more information on the foundation.
Garcia highlighted the shared mission of the UNESCO Chair and the Fodazione Marianna to promote the union of ethical thought and artistic creativity. He noted the inseparable relation between the good and the beautiful. Our own experience reveals that we commonly refer to ethically wrong acts not only as evil, but as ugly and ethically right acts not only as good, but as beautiful. Artists have the noble missions of communicating this profound relation between the ethical and aesthetic through the universal language art.
The UNESCO Chair´s promotion of human dignity through art will again be showcased in the 2013 Global Art Competition, following the success of the first competition one year ago (click here for more information). The 2011 Global Art Competition featured 225 submissions from 23 countries and was unveiled in the UN General Assembly Hall of New York, before being displayed in Rome, Italy and Houston, Texas.