My city

I had never been to C, I ended up there, by mistake, on a Saturday in September. I got there through beautiful and contrasting landscapes, and through an intersection that I didn't have to take. Hidden on the border between S and A, lying on the mouth of the river S and with Mount P framing the landscape, C presents itself to me with very special colors, sounds and atmospheres. Almost everything is at a standstill. A timeless snapshot seems to reproduce every movement at a slower speed than the real thing. It is not difficult, in this slow-motion effect, to feel that a place as simple as it is extraordinary is hidden here.

A person is waiting for me, deliberately, in the lower part of the hill, where historical gardens are positioned, partly flat and partly on terraces, which introduce a path. We cross them and then we begin to climb along a narrow and steep walkway.

The buildings are lined up, narrow, next to each other. There are no trees. There is calm. Nothing is happening. I keep walking. I live in space, I walk through it, I discover it. The narrow staircase is a sort of ascensional initiation that puts a strain on the breath and the legs, but the glance, from up there, dominates the landscape, which appears of a poignant beauty. I look at the marks left by man stratified in space and time. Human signs that have interlaced with the environment and that are history and character. I don't know these spaces. But it is my space. It is my city.

Erica Scalcione.