Last Friday, the young people of In my art Palermo, took #intreccifotografici (photography braiding) youth-led initiative to the streets. An opportunity to meet and get to know each other through photography.

The place chosen for the first “braiding” was the Bar-Caféetteria “Altrove” in the historic centre of Palermo, a project based on the belief that travelling is a fundamental tool for creating relationships between people and places, and that all people have the right to choose where to live and feel at home anywhere on earth, regardless of any geopolitical borders or place of origin: my land is where I put my feet (Moltivolti).

In fact, #Intreccifotografici proposed to the community to take a photo of a own familiar place and participate in a photographic installation co-building:

Look around, observe the photos you see hanging in the frame. Whenever you want, place your photo and if you feel a link with some other photo(s), use the wire to make this  link visible.

 

Coloured wires, photographs, messages written in pen. These are the elements of the photographic installation. The boys and girls created a cosy place on a street corner, an unusual way of experiencing a bar, says D., which made her want to stay.

For P. it was an opportunity to bring out the creative part of himself, unexpectedly: I felt free to express myself, to be myself. I was able to authorise myself to use the language of art and colours, an experience that is often wrongly judged childish.

It seems that the desire of meeting the other (s) and co-creating “normalised” the creative act in an (in)usual place, a coffee shop, to the point of allowing young people who did not know each other before to interact with confidence. The choice of the photographic shot was often the “excuse” for dialogue, an easy way to start chatting and know each-other , while the installation grew under our eyes.

From the individual to the collective, #intreccifotografici opened the space to reflect on one’s own concept of “familiarity”, gaining new insights or discovering that my Foro Italico is not your Foro Italico (A.). The intention of ‘making community’, combined with the art of photography as a tool, has allowed the participants to create a welcoming place where to discover common ground and bring the richness of own uniqueness to visibility.

In my art Palermo