Laundry Poems

The island of Burano is certainly one of the jewels of the Venetian lagoon. One of its peculiarities, which distinguishes it from all the other islands of the Venice lagoon, is the incredible chromatic variety of the houses, painted with different bright colors that give a unique chromatic effect. A constant presence of any view of Burano are the cloths lying to dry between the calli (streets). A constant and changing presence at the same time, which from time to time gives unrepeatable views that last the time of drying. It is an ancient tradition, a popular custom of the past, but that in this small fishing village represent nothing more than daily life. In the clothes that wave in the sun, suspended in the air, there are the secrets of each family. Shreds of cloth that can reveal emotions hanging on wires, which allow us to enter with the imagination in the privacy of each home. It can happen, walking through the streets of the village, to feel like inside a particular state of grace. To be crossed, without resistance, by the lives of others, by the traces of their living in a place. It happens when you listen to what is around you and raise your head a bit, until you meet with your eyes the exposed intimacy of a few hanging clothes. Signs, shameless and beautiful, of presences that can be admired, in their mystery. In Burano almost all the buildings are connected in a huge network of wires, one or more thin wires in fact connect a building to another, ready to be used to hang the clothes. The ideal time is a beautiful sunny day that follows a few gray days of rain. The metallic screeching of the pulleys on which the wires run and the scent of Marseille soap herald the event: suddenly the streets dress up festively. A laundry festival, an endless rainbow whose scent pervades entire neighborhoods. In any other part of the world you might be considered as a voyeur, but not in Burano: socks, tank tops, shirts, sheets, but also bras, underpants, nothing is denied to the sight of the passer-by who, wandering upwards with his nose, can almost enter the intimacy of other people's homes. There is no folkloric ostentation or exhibitionistic complacency in this "occupation" of urban air space. In the most popular neighbourhoods, domestic life still takes place in the streets, spaces that are conceived as an extension of one's own home and that, as such, are consequently lived by the inhabitants of the island. All that's left for us to do is enjoy these laundry poems.