Dèrma

Pellestrina (Laguna di Venezia). On the map, there are only eighty kilometers between my home and the island, but this distance translates into a real journey. Two and a half hours of travel, first by car, then on a vaporetto and finally on a bus that can be ferried from island to island proceeding smoothly and patiently following the stops. My final landing takes place with Line 11, on a “coach” which makes repetitive daily journeys and caresses the 11-kilometer-long island like a wave: a thin line of land, suspended over the water sometimes for a few meters in width, a track that makes you feel almost helpless in front of the natural spectacle of the place. The journey becomes preparatory, a progressive adaptation, an education for transformation. Everything is marked by a rhythm of waiting. Then, upon arrival, the water, the wind and the salt immediately manifest the uniqueness of this strip of land where the lagoon can be widely breathed. Here you can perceive the essential, within a microcosm that silently welcomes you and digs you inside. My first acquaintance with the island took place almost twenty years ago, during a summer cycling trip with friends. On that occasion, inattentive and almost holiday-like, I could not grasp anything specific, but something latent remained inside me. A few years ago I returned there alone, during the winter, almost following a recall and I was struck by it. I immediately loved the quality of silence and the somewhat rough and melancholy simplicity that envelops everything. I meditated for a long time on the way to express and interpret the depth of this amphibious place with my gaze; initially focusing on the name of the island, I thought about a skin, an association that is perhaps banal if accepted without consideration. The skin, or the surface of things, is the first barrier with the outside. I tried to figure out the epidermis of the place, starting from the assumption that in a territory so exposed the external surface can only hide a great depth. Gradually a personal image of the island arose through the expression of the sensitive form of the isomorphisms created by atmospheric agents, salt, water, small marine creatures and man. Behind this peel you breathe traditions, effort, work and an infinite sweetness.