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Topolo`:
in other words, what drives you to do it?
written by
Moreno Miorelli, english
translation by
Stefania Corbelli
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I think Barbara’s aunt was called Elisabeth. She had a childhood dream: the
Trans-Siberian railway. She
worked all her life. Once she
retired, the little ones grown into adulthood, she began to travel up and
down the Trans-Siberian railway. It
was during the 70s. She was 70
years old. She died on her fifth journey, in a very small station near Bajkal. She was returning, to then depart
again.
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Giorgio is one of the few who survived
the Vajont landslide. In 1963 he
was a pupil at Longarone school. There
were 22 in his class. 3 were
left.
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Simone is a very bright and intelligent boy. The school struggles to control him. In Topolo` he has open the museum of
found objects. He has built a
house for himself and his friends; there is a wood burner and even a toilet. He has helped the artists to set up
their installations. He does not
even miss the book launches. Last year he was one of the seven people who
made it through a midnight-to-fivea.m. projection of a Russian film with
French subtitles. A series of
close ups taken inside a Russian battle cruiser in the Arctic Sea, in the
winter. He was looking away only to nudge an American, sleeping and
snoring next to him, who wasn’t allowing him to hear the film.
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Anton is a Catalan. Despite being younger than me, and I am not
old, he lived without water and electricity until the age of fifteen. Generations of farmers. In the vicinity of his house there
was, there still is, a small river. He
used to break off the reeds and draw with water on the large flat stones of
the area. He used to work for
hours and then get up satisfied with his many meters of drawn stones, looking
back at them despite the fact that the sun was erasing everything in a few
seconds.
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Rene` was a promising sculptress in her
country. She was often sent to
symposiums and exhibitions throughout Europe, as a representative of the
young, lively art of the nation. Then
the war broke out and she worked as a volunteer with the refugee children. She has never been able to sculpt again. She collects voices. She suggests shots. She sits down and listens. She asks people to sit down and to
listen.
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Four years ago Rick and Jorg arrived at
the square in Topolo` with a big motorbike.
They came from Wuppertal. They
had set off on their journey after finding, at their newly rented house, an
invitation to something called Stazione, which takes place in Italy,
somewhere not on the maps. Their
address was known only to their respective mothers. They are not artists. Two years ago they realised three
very beautiful projects for Topolo`. For the past four years, during the month of July, they have
slept in a tent near the old school. I
never posted that original invitation.
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He is one of the elderly inhabitants of the
village. He is
amongst the eldest ones. He is,
as everybody else, very attached to the land, to his property. One day he walked down to the square
and sat there with an unusual face and with his head lowered. Near his field is a pair of gigantic
wings, as if they were the Angel who takes away everything, and everything
one has is nothing. “We have
made mistakes on many things. They
have told us so many lies!” It
was an installation by Giuseppino De Cesco.
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A lady, touched, approaches Giuseppino and
tells him “Thank you, this is our history.
It is the whole of our history”.
I am approached by two greenhorns dressed in black and wearing dark
sunglasses, two ‘experts’ who proceed to let me know that, had certain
details been realised in wood rather than iron, “it might have been a good
piece of work”.
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Lauren works in Wellington, New Zealand, with
terminally ill people. Together
they build their coffins. They
plan it. They carve it. They inlay it. They
engrave it. They decorate it. And when the resulting piece is
completed there is a great sense of satisfaction.
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Simone, Cora and Vanessa find a piece of bread
under a bench. Using the soft
part they make twelve small balls and they lay them out in a circle so that
“the little birds will know the time”.
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a) He is German.
30 years ago he walked in a large museum, in West Berlin, he removed a
15th Century painting from the wall and ran out amongst the
warning sirens. He ran around the city with the painting under his coat. He entered the Turk zone, knocked on
a door at random and he was let inside.
He pulled a hammer and a nail from his pocket; he hung the painting in
the dining room of the poor apartment and, hugging the occupier, he said,
“You work and live in Germany, therefore this German painting is yours too”. The police captured him as he was
still in the house, in the way he wanted it to happen. He served his time in prison, and he
was expelled from early 70s Berlin, which was his city.
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b) A local
artist, a visitor at the Stazione, told me that he had made a “work”
in which an image of the Madonna was revealing some intimate part, I do not
know which one it was. There was
great laughter when an elderly religious woman approached the “work” and
then left, flustered and red in her face.
Dated: early 90s. After
so many years, that miserable man was still laughing as he was recounting the
incident. Every place and every
historical time get the transgression they deserve.
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Using income from the kiosk, the community of
Topolo`, besides covering expenses, has allowed some African boys to continue
their studies in their country. Long
distance adoption is perhaps one of the least embarrassing ways to help
someone in need. But the village
has its own whims and this year it has unanimously been decided to purchase a
work: a cube-shaped transparent ‘house’, sited in the forest facing the
village. At night it lights up
thanks to a solar panel. “It
is really beautiful, it is like life!”
Actually, there are no bourgeois living in Topolo`. Only aristocrats.
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He tells us he became an orphan at the age of
fifteen, towards the end of the 50s. His
father was amongst the few who survived the Stalingrad battle. “Loosing my parents was a huge
grief, but I couldn’t help realising that I was free. I could do things that before would
have been unthinkable”. Few
days ago, I am reading from a book by Alda Merini, a sharp line, with no
comment: “In order to be a
poet one must not have relativs”.
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“Well done, very beautiful idea! I am a painter. I have shown work here and there, if you like I can bring you
the newspaper articles. Mr XY (nearly
always a politician or an ex-politician) and myself, we are on first name
terms with each other…I would come here on Sunday, with my paintings, and I
can hang them on this wall. You
will then see some article on the Messaggero!
What do you think?” “No, thank you”. “But what do you think? This stuff that you have here…is
not art! In such a
characteristic place you need murals! If
you have murals you will have people all year round!” “Well done, you see, you have
understood why we will never have a mural!”
Three local elderly ladies have witnessed the very familiar scene
whilst sitting on a bench: “Credit to your patience! But do not worry because, should one
of that type approach the wall with a brush, I will cut it off myself!” And they burst out laughing.
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Marija is four years old. She was born on the 4th of
July 1996, at the height of the Stazione.
Comparing this year with ’99, she has noticed “a lot of people I
don’t know and new installations and new musicians for my birthday…”
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During the summer ’97 my children were not
aware that I used to follow them as they would go and play in the forest. As per usual, that year I had
received anonymous phone calls threatening “accidents” to the children,
precisely in the forest. This
was after the usual “Slavophile full of shit”, “Go back to Bosnia”,
etc. That turning against the little ones is the most loathsome
threaten, but the telephone operators know that, should anything happen, I
will kill them (the telephone operators).
All of them, including the odd “innocent”, out of excessive zeal,
out of an ecological vocation and in order to obey that horrendous,
biblical instinct which chains up to these lives. “Beware of the wrath of the meek”. This is how nothing ever happens
around here. However nobody can
change my mind on the fact that few people, like the telephone operators,
have so profoundly understood who drives us, and why, to have the Stazione di
Topolo`.
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Patrizio is from Naples. He has worked for many years to help the cause of the Sahrawi
people, a population in exile. For
Topolo`, he has taken with him an extraordinary photographic archive
entrusted to him by the Sahrawi people.
It consists of the photographs found on the bodies of the enemies,
which were either killed or captured. Mothers,
children, wives, friends; smiling gazes of simple people, simple humanity
forced by strategists to play the role of the invading enemy. The Sahrawi people of the Polisario
Front thus make their tragedy known through the pity for their enemy; they
ask that compassion may substitute, and in any case always supervise, hate. This, the lesson of the desert
people, was taken to Topolo` on the 27th, 28th, 29th
of June 2000. “Necessity of
the Faces” was the understandable title.
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When he arrives in Cividale on the one carriage
train he is very tired, but he is smiling.
It is extremely hot, it is difficult to breath. He struggles to get off the train;
his knees are out of order, “I am happy to be here”. He has flown from New York to Milan,
and then travelled by train to Venice, Udine and Cividale. I apologise for providing him with the train timetable for
the Udine-Cividale leg of the journey, but there are just a few of us ….etc. “I am happy, it is a very beautiful
train”. His partner, a
beautiful Dutch lady, joins him in Topolo`; on the day of his departure I
notice that she hands him some tablets, “He must take them several times a
day, or else his heart might stop. He
did not mention, did he?”
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Lauren has arrived to Topolo` from Wellington. Terry, her brother who lives in
Honolulu, has joined her here. It
is their first visit to Italy. They
have only two suitcases, very much alike.
During their return trip, one of them is stolen in Mestre: when they
realise it has gone missing, they look at each other with great worry, they
open the one which is left and then hug each other, crying with happiness. The case that survived the theft was
the one containing their mother’s ashes. She had recently died and had
wished to be resting for ever in that little village in central Italy, where
her son and daughter were heading for, the village where she had been born
and which she only knew by name. “The other one contained only clothes, documents and a
little money…”
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Barbara is an artist from New Zealand. She has remained strongly linked to
Topolo`. Together with her
Christmas greeting card she sends a photograph where, from a hole in the
ground, one can see two feet surrounded by a considerable crowd, immortalised
from the knees down. After
thirty years of painting practice and for the Stazione, Barbara had
“dared” her first installation, and a brilliant one too! I reply with my congratulations for
her courage in relation to her undertaking another new direction: the
performance, as documented by the photograph received. One month later I receive an amused
and apologetic letter “How on earth did the photo of the waterworks outside
our house end up with the greeting cards?”
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Agostina is over seventy years old, she has
lived in Topolo` for the last forty years.
She has just come home from hospital and I find her walking under the
rain. “Signora, take my
umbrella, cover your head!” “Ah! It is pointless to cover one’s
ignorance!”
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They have been living together for the last
three years in a big German city. S.
is a very beautiful girl, intelligent and curious. She was born and lived in a village situated at one air mile
from Topolo`. One evening, on
the underground of that German city, where she was only supposed to spend a
few months, she thought she recognised a familiar face, someone she had seen
before…perhaps at the Stazione. Maybe
he is that artist. I’ll say
hello, I will not say hello, I’ll say hello…
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During the transition from 1999 to 2000, over a
two months period, four funerals took place in Topolo`: a catastrophe for a
village with a population of fifty. During
the last six years I had witnessed two burials and five births. Then, suddenly, the deluge. The village is very shaken; the
assembly decides that prompt action is needed, immediately: a vine will be
planted, and it will be the eldest, Peppo, and the last born, Sofia, who will
plant it. So it takes place. The haemorrhage is halted.
Two weeks ago Marika was born. And
somewhere out there, there is still someone asking me “but why, for the
Stazione, have you indeed chosen Topolo`?”
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J. is from Boemia, he is a very simple and very
humble person and he lives in great simplicity in a country house, few
kilometres away from Prague. One
evening, three years ago, whilst dining together with his wife and children,
he heard a knock at the door. It
was a young girl, 24, 25 years old. The
girl explained to him that she was his daughter, a daughter he himself did
not know the existence of, the fruit of a flirt at a young age. J. and his family embraced the girl
and were so delighted with this new arrival that they celebrated for three
consecutive days with music and dance, calling all their friends, their own
and their children’s friends.
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Lino lives in Topolo`. In the early 80s, as a very young man, was able to get
access to a super8 cinecamera. He
began to film life in the village, the animated and the non-animated life,
recording any kind of moment: in the shop, in the small square, in the fields. He has filmed seemingly anonymous
moments, as someone who knows a great deal about gazes, without
cinematographic intents. Anton,
a Catalan artist, was told about this exceptional archive and he has
transferred the very fragile super8 material onto video. This July we will be able to see the
first part of the real face and of the real faces of Topolo` as it was.
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During one of his journeys, P. ended up living
in an oasis in the Chilean Atacama Desert.
The feast of the patron saint was, and probably still is, the most
awaited event. During those
twenty four hours it is customary for anybody of full age to be allowed to
make love with someone belonging to the community other than their husband or
wife, providing this would take place somewhere sheltered from curious eyes. This practice consolidates
relationships within the population, which, perhaps coincidentally, sees no
occurrences of either theft, murder, or crimes of passion. One should not need to specify that
the practice is far removed from the idea of an orgy and that on the
following day, once the festivity is over, husbands and wives not only do not
frown at each other, but they actually carry on living with unchanged love
and respect for one another. I
sometime think that the impossibility of introducing and managing such an
event in our world is one of the key reasons for our loss of the sacred.
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For the third year running John will cross the
Atlantic Ocean to come to Topolo` and then go back to New York. This year he will rebuild a fountain
which has been in disuse for years and which will therefore become
operational once again. Last
year he officially opened, with a small plate, the American Academy of Art
& Architecture. As from the
month of July, the imaginary Academy will be complemented by a Library, a
real one, to which he himself will donate a number of books. Artists who, in the past, present or
future, have taken part in the Stazione will donate the rest of the books. Each artist willing to contribute
will donate just one book, but it must be “the book”, the one he/she
would take on a desert island, the one that has played the most important
part in his/her personal development. The library, located in one of the houses that remain empty
during the winter, will be open to the public.
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Thanks to a European law, Topolo` has
seen the restoration of nine houses, aiming to provide tourist accommodation
in the village. The highest
demand is during the summer as many people enjoy spending their holiday in
Topolo`, thus creating a moderate but encouraging economic flow too. But seen that the houses are to be
utilised by tourists (who pay), the question is: where to accommodate tens
and tens of artists (who do not pay) who live in the village for the best
part of July? There are nine
proprietors, all different people and all with different ideas about life,
money, politics. Again this year,
all nine of them have said: “First come the artists”. And there are still
those who ask me, “but why do you hold the Stazione in Topolo` rather than
in…?”
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One winter day, as I was walking
about Topolo`, I saw two local children looking extremely concentrated
and very quiet. They were on the
doorway of an empty house, intent on slowly moving the door and causing it to
creak. I watched them for
several minutes and then I asked them what they were doing. “Ssshh! We are making a concert. Can you hear the sound of this door?! It was beautiful earlier on when
someone in the forest was using the power saw!”
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Vlado was called back to the Croatian army in
’93. Artist and art historian,
he did not desert the army but he refused to shoot. He advanced with the others, armed
only with a camera, machine-gunning his snaps to “friends” and “enemies”. Both sides, in agreement, were
shooting at him.
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Peter is a very renowned poet in his country. For a very long time, too long a
time, he had not been able to write even just one line. Total aphasia. In Topolo`’s Waiting Room he read
some of his old works. On the
following morning, in a room overlooking the small square, the uncork-age: he wrote a poem dedicated to the
village and others followed on from that. For his work in the field of poetry he received, last month,
the Preseren Prize, the highest cultural recognition in Slovenia.
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He is German.
Thirty years ago he conducted, on behalf of Polaroid, a long
photographic research in Sardinia. During
that time he was always in the company of a young local man, who was his
guide and assistant and who became, over the months, a kind of brother. Later they lost contact with each
other. This summer in Topolo`,
he started a conversation with a young Sardininan man who had moved here and
was living in the valleys. One
uestion led to another till the young man discovered that that boy, thirty
years ago, was actually his own father.
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Once upon a time in Naples, B., 40 years old
pediatrician, entered the eternal game of cops, robbers and others alike. Himself and a group of young people
occupied an old and deserted school in a bronx on the outskirts of the city. Together they renovated it. They collected and gathered in the
building 2500 used syringes. They
set up theatres, workshops, concerts. It
was 1989 and they called themselves ‘Tienament’. They caused the local drug market to
collapse: the young people now had better options. Twice the camorra (local mafia) set
fire to the buildings: they
re-built. The local council
tried twice to evict them: they
did not allow it. When B. came
to the Stazione in ’95 with some of the young people, he had just left
hospital: some skinheads had bolted him on the head, at night. In ’96, by order of the mayor, the
‘Tienament’ was closed by the police, because it was a squat or perhaps
because, in the eternal game of cops, robbers, hooligans and dealers the
figure of the Angel is not contemplated.
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There is a thread tying Topolo` to horses. Galloping on the Internet one can
find out about the achievements of a trotter, Topolo`, often engaged
in competitions at racecourses across the North. At the last Sydney Olympics, one of
the favourite in the dressage speciality rode a horse by the name of Julian
Dashper. Julian Dashper, artist
from New Zealand, has taken part to several editions of the Stazione; every
year he suggests to us one or more artists to invite. He will come back this July. The Olympic knight is a devoted
collector of his work.
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One day I saw a five years old girl opening her
arms wide in front of a cherry tree in bloom and saying “Lucky him”.
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What for everybody is Stazione di Topolo`-Postaja
Topolove, for the people of the village is simply “the Feast”.
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ultimo aggiornamento venerdì 17 agosto 2001
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