June 2019: “Your Step Is Already History”
September 2019: “Footprints on the Way”
These dates mark the beginning of two paths taken by two people who, at a certain point, though in different ways, “met” along their journeys. Without knowing it yet, we were united by the same purpose: to live life in the absolute wonder of a simple daily emotion, one that always begins with the first step we take each morning, starting our adventurous day.
In a footprint, in a path, lies our essence, our being, our way of living. The meeting with Andrea Devicenzi, creator of “Footprints on the Way”, came about thanks to Alessandra Croci, President of the Via Francigena in Tuscia, who in just over a year wove a human network, a kind of web ready to serve as a point of reference for pilgrims who feel welcomed in a city they don’t know. The Via Francigena logo placed outside the various venues becomes a kind of guide for pilgrims, helping them feel at home. Alessandra asked everyone how, in their own way, they could welcome and support the pilgrims passing through Viterbo.
My work, aimed at creating pieces that nourish the spirit more than the body, led me to share an emotion with them, a kind of mutual exchange, where I can give them the opportunity to become part of our city’s history by letting them “immortalise their step”. How? Along a shared path marked by the individual steps of hundreds of thousands of people who have taken their emotions to heart, what remains of the pilgrim is only the sense of a journey never interrupted across the centuries: they leave us a “footprint”, which on arrival they find empty, ready to receive their name. This moment of shared emotion, which takes place inside my studio, where I offer my “empty space” that they fill in with their name, charges the stone with a meaning that goes beyond a single signature, filling with emotion a step that becomes achievement and discovery of life.
For me, even as a ceramicist, footprints have always had a deeper meaning, beyond the mark we see – they are a true DNA. That’s why, playing with my own initials, I created a passage and named my studio “Percorsi Artistici” (Artistic Paths). Just as in life, professional pursuits never really reach an end point for someone like me, possessed by the idea of discovery, journey and knowledge – which can sometimes happen even while standing still.
So there I am, standing still on the main artery of the medieval village, as fate would somewhat have it, at Viterbo, Via San Pellegrino, 27, meeting so many pilgrims, always travelling; and even though I share their joys and their hardships for just a few moments, our – their journey is “immortalised”, “fixed”, by great fire onto peperino, a volcanic stone that, better than any other, can represent the strength, energy and explosion of a pilgrim whose enthusiasm is like that of a volcano, always ready to reignite.
Pilgrims are ready to bear witness, today as in the past, to the ancient cultural root of European identity, having connected religions, cultures, languages and customs, which have contributed to the integration and development of peoples. Perhaps only they have managed to create a “European community” – and not only European.
The medieval village of San Pellegrino is a must-see destination for tourists, and at a time when so much is said about openness, hospitality and even emotional tourism – aside from this pandemic pause – we realise that pilgrims were the first forerunners: for centuries, their mobility has become, from the Middle Ages to today, a metaphor for the personal journey, a tool for spiritual growth. However invisible to most, pilgrims have always walked the paths of the earth and of life; through their individual steps they welcome each day whatever life offers them, ready to change their plans, following the signs life gives them.
The project “Your Step Is Already History” has already gathered numerous signatures, and at every site marked and followed by pilgrims the project has already become theirs, because they know they are protagonists of this story, happy to share their experience with others. The simplicity of the encounter and the wonder of hospitality, spread by continuous word of mouth, has become a journey where even the pause takes on an empathetic meaning. The coronavirus made this pause a little longer, if not an outright halt, but Viterbo’s walls, after the pandemic, must no longer represent a defence: they will be open in a kind of embrace, ready now as then to get to know, recognise, listen and tell stories. I had already prepared many footprints, ready to receive their signatures, to create their story and ours.
Now it is I who dedicate to you, who have stayed at home, these footprints bearing the words “I’m staying home” in different languages of the world, to bear witness to a historic moment never experienced before, and I can confirm that the Via Francigena, which from the Middle Ages to today has witnessed an unstoppable flow of travellers, is today deserted. Only the virus has managed to stop the pilgrim. I wanted to title this piece “Let’s Love Our Footprints, and Set Off” because there are countless ways to travel even while standing still, but we are all already ready to set off again. All of us here, ready to welcome them now as then.
