The exhibition in Berlin is coming…we are working on it

The exhibition is coming soon. We are working on it in these days. The video preview is already available, check it!

 

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Projects swap in Sydney with Alana

Sydney has the most amazing harbour that I have ever seen. I felt lucky for spending my last day of the trip there.

I woke up very early in the morning; I wanted to see the ship getting to the port. Suddenly the opera house, the bridge and the museum of contemporary art surrounded us. We were still inside the ship, but at the same time inside the city: we could see people behind the windows of the buildings and the faces of those who were walking in the streets!

Going ashore was not so easy: I had to carry 40 kilos of luggage with me + the stuff for my swapper. After a couple of hours, I finally got to the MCA, where I found Alana, waiting for me.

 

A beautiful Australian pale blue eyes girl wearing Indian clothes. She explained me that India is her second home!

We started to swap, sitting in the grass, just in front of the museum, surrounded by gulls.

Alana gave me a wooden tiny box with a fabric inside. At a first glance, I thought it was one of Kashmir’s typical scarfs, but then, when I opened it, I saw that there was a hand printed. It’s her hand! The hand, as she explained me, represents the way people are connected and help each other. The hand is a sort of metaphor for human relationship. I think that It’s true: giving your hand to somebody means that you are open to help him and to support him.

Then it was my turn: first I showed her the super-suitcase that Azucena gave me in Buenos  Aires. I put many things inside: several maps and cards that I collected during the trip and mixed them with others that I brought from my place, that were especially meaningful for me; my trip diary (by inviting her to use it as her personal diary for her next trip) and, of course, the cute electric train that Azu left inside it. But the very surprise for Alana was finding also Nancy’s luggage inside the suitcase.  I opened the woollen blanket in the grass, reconstructing the story of Nancy’s family, by showing the family tree that she sewed inside it.

I remember that when I was in Puerto Montt, Nancy told me that she would love to make other artists implement her piece, with more pieces, objects or texts and then return it to her. This is why I thought that Alana could be the right person to do it. I didn’t know her before, of course, but I knew something about her works, especially the way she is interested in connecting traditions with relational practices. She told me that she would be glad to do it, and of course, we kept the promise to return it to Nancy later.

Then it came the second part of the swap: Alana invited me to take part in cups of nunchai. The project is about the way people can remember and reflect upon the tragedy happened in Kashmir, where 117 people lost their lives, most of them shot by police and paramilitary forces, since the 11^th June 2010. Alana invites 117 people to have a cup of the typical Kashmir tea with her, as an act that acknowledges the lives that are being lost.

We sat in the grass, drinking this strong flavoured tea, I felt as I was sharing with her a ritual; there was a sort of holy atmosphere, even if we were totally absorbed by the noises of the city. Alana explained me the political situation in Kashmir and the way it affected to the inhabitants. It was really interesting, it was like discovering a world inside another one: just arrived at Sydney for the first time, I suddenly got in contact with another unfamiliar situation, that of Kashmir. I tried to imagine Alana there, her life and her discoveries in India.

She is a very enriching and joyful person. In just one hour, she could introduce me to her world, her experience and her thoughts and she made me also reflect about a very problematic conflict that is affecting nowadays society. I really thank her.

 

extra-ordinary swap in pago-pago!

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Kim is a 70 year old man who decided to leave the US 10 years ago and started sailing around the world. He was lawyer for 30 years, and sailor since he was a child.

I met him in the harbour of Pago Pago in the morning. Since the first glance, I thought he could have all of the characteristics to be the perfect subject for a brother Cohen’s movie. We just spoke few words. He already knew where he wanted to take me, so it was not so necessary to exchange the typical phrases like “Welcome”, “How are you?”, “What’s your first impression of the island?” etc… We went to a Chinese bar to have lemonade.

Once there, Kim openedhis laptop, and showed me lots of photos that he made during his trips, especially in Samoa. They are very good, he’s very talented in catching good colours and in finding the right time of pressing the button of the camera.

The conversation started to be more fluent: his story is so interesting, I mean, his life. I felt as I was just a spectator of the speech that he was giving about his life. He can catch you the attention and provoke surprise and astonishment. He explained that he wanted to continue to sail for the next 10 or 15 years and then go back to San Diego, the place that he left 10 years ago. This will be the final destination of his trip and of his life. I felt as I was completely outside my daily life, and that I met a really special person.

I remember that when I was at the high school, Lety, one of my best friends, wrote in her diary “Life is a journey, not a destination”. I always thought that it could have only been a metaphor to express the way you can experiment and enjoy your life. But I have never thought that it could have taken seriously as a statement for planning your life.

Living your life as an endless trip, or in other words, travelling as a way of living: this is the typical story that you can usually read in books and watch in films. In your daily life, when you’re busy with your routine, you don’t think that it ‘s possible to know somebody that really does it.

So, I feel as I am the most ordinary girl who meets an extraordinary man. Haha. This is the first time that I have this feeling.  I have never considered me like that, but now I am starting to think that I still have to face with extraordinary things, in order to be extraordinary! I’m joking, I’m quite satisfied with my unstable routine life, anyway, I think this is a very interesting story and I am proud to have found Kim as one of my swappers!

After the lemonade, Kim organized a personal tour of the island for us. We sailed around the island with him: he showed us old boats, a tuna factory, an abandoned hotel, a church … everything that we saw, was related to a story. He’s so good in telling stories; It’s very interesting the way he can connect one object to the place where it is and also with other places that he has visited. I think that this is the way that a very professional traveller uses his memory and trains his mind.

At the end of the tour, I said goodbye to Kim: “ Bye, I hope to see you again”. He answered me: “Yes, maybe in our next life”.

Next swap in Rio!

Tomorrow I’ll meet Maíra das Neves in Rio de Janeiro for swapping and organising the fastest exhibition that we’ve ever seen. At Bheringer Studios, rua Orestes 28, at 4 p.m. Very excited.

Please follow the news next days…

See you later!

 

swapping in London… with Carolina

Waiting for the boat, only few minutes to describe my swapping with Carol in London.

I met her yesterday at Liverpool street, with a very tiny suitcase.

Carol arrived with a mysterious box, she told me I have to open it when I’ll reach the first stop of the trip: Madeira. I will. Not so easy waiting for days, but I promise, I will.

Carolina Rieckhof  is a very very sweet Peruvian artist, who’s studying and working in London.

Her work is related to the body and the act of “wearing clothes”, in order to create blurring boundaries between them. The body is fused into the clothes, in order to explore feelings of frustration or difficult to under stand. By using “sculptural clothes” Carolina can feel the weight and the uncomfortability of the material and then free herself by taking out them from her body.

I feel a lot of empathy with her, her way of living, many years far from home, excitement for having new experience and experiment new emotions. A very passionate person.

Thank u carol, I’ll bring u a new suitcase when I’ll be back in Europe in March!

The first swapper… Andrea!

As last month I was spending my Christmas holidays at home, in Imola (italy), I’ve decided to find the first swapper
in my town. The trip actually starts here, I thought…So, I was wandering about someone special to share the swap. And I found it; Andrea, a very funny and intelligent guy from the Romagna region, so authentic, and clever at the same time. He’s a very good ceramist, who can combines a marvelous technique with a very strong humorism.I’ve decided to met him in my favourit bar: the Baccus bar, run by Lucia, a very special woman…

The gift that I found in Andrea’s small box is like….a sort of…shit!

A very luxurious one, made of ceramics. It represents Andrea’s good luck! for my journey.

I don’t know if in the rest of the world is the same…but here, people believe that shit brings luck…So, this is just what I needed to start my journey !

Thank u Andrea, see you soon!

let’s travel, let’s swap!

I invite artists and people sensitive to arts, coming from every place that I will visit during my trip from the UK to Australia, to pack a part of their life for me. All the objects prepared by the artists will be contained in a suitcase that they will swap with me during my visit in his/her place. Why packing objects in a luggage? Because the luggage represents the essence of the traveller: inside a luggage there is all of the life of a person who is moving around the world. As the next two months all of my life will be inside a suitcase, I have decided to swap part of it with artists who, at the same time, will leave a part of their life to me. The way and the place in which the swaps will happen will be decided by the artists involved, according to the emotions and the places that they would like to present and evoke through this action. The swap will also represent an opportunity for me to know and feel new places through the eyes of the person which I will swap with: thanks to the encounter with these artists, I will enter a subjective experience of living in the places that I will visit. Thanks to that, I will reconstruct the trip itinerary through the multiplicity of perspectives, characters and subjectivities, which I will know during my trip, by swapping. The concept of swapping, indeed, represents a way to exchange not only objects but also ideas, personalities and emotions. Everybody is invited to participate and join me in my swapping!

luggageswap@gmail.com EMAIL ME!!!

The potential encounters

Luggage swap is a project about the encounter, which is at the basis of every type of human relationship: the encounter as an instantaneous relationship, which is sometimes real, sometimes potential. I am especially interested in the potential encounter, as a sort of lost opportunity with someone that in our life we couldn’t know in depth or we haven’t succeed in getting to know. When this kind of things happen, we usually save a part of ourselves, which we would have liked to make him/her know, and the desire of discovering parts of him/her. The potential encounter is sometimes represented also by a potential change in our life. We trust that before or after, something exciting will change our life, just thanks to an encounter…

luggageswap@gmail.com EMAIL ME!!!

my life inside my luggage

7 years of travels; 7 years of moving; 7 years of sending packs from one place in the world to another one.

My life has been contained in so many luggages, boxes, packs which have been travelling around Europe with me. I started in Spain, then in Germany, then in Italy, then in Spain again and finally in the Uk.

This is the result: 

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As the next two months I will travel around South america and the Pacific,  I was thinking about a way to share my experience with people who could be sensitive to the arts and the sensations and emotions that a travelling life means. And  here comes the  Luggage swap! (Please, have a look at the project outline)

Let’s travel, let’s swap!

luggageswap@gmail.com EMAIL ME!