A journey, an imaginary journey between Milan and Zurich. Landscapes and fast passages captured in photographs, poems and stories. This is “TranSiti” (Armando Dadò editore, 2023, pp. 104), the latest book by Valentina Giuliani which takes up the experience of an extraordinary train, the ArtTransit, in whose carriages and outside, all along the journey between Milan and Zurich, cross-border theatrical, artistic and musical performances took place in 2014.
A very particular project, that of ArtTransit, taken as a starting point by Valentina Giuliani to travel within and outside herself, freely, truly without borders.
We then ask the author how she came up with the idea for this so little classifiable book, with its alternation of photos, stories, short texts and poems:
«TranSiti belongs to a trilogy published entirely by Armando Dadò editore consisting of The Museum of Lost Loves (2021) and The Human Library (2022), a literary project of revisiting places that become the ideal setting for my stories. In the first book of the trilogy, the Museum of Broken Relationships in Zagreb inspires love stories introduced by drawings of objects that symbolize their beginning and end. Then, in the second 'chapter' of the trilogy, the Human Library of Copenhagen collects the testimonies of a complex humanity, not reducible to labels, which can be approached without prejudice and mistrust. TranSiti tells of an imaginary journey from Milan to Zurich which becomes an opportunity for storytelling."
Why the TranSiti title?
«The title deliberately takes up the name of the ArTransit project which inspires it but also wants to signify the passage of images, memories, ordinary and extraordinary experiences, awakened by the vision of a landscape, captured in its movement and change».
How did the stories you tell in the book come about?
«The stories were written starting from the black and white photographs of Barbara Fässler, an artist who illustrated the first two books of the aforementioned trilogy. However, while for the Museum of Lost Loves and The Human Library he created the drawings based on texts provided by me, here we worked the other way around and it wasn't always easy. Barbara's shots seek out places where the human figure is absent, they scour large cities, uncovering marginal areas, they confront us with the void. My writing is rather nourished by the richness and variety of emotions, feelings, memories and real life experiences. With this book I entered unknown territories. This too is the meaning of the journey: the beginning of disorientation."
Is there a story in the book that you are particularly attached to?
"No. Rather, I am fascinated by the idea of an interior and imaginative journey, a journey in which to get lost and find oneself, in which to immerse oneself and re-emerge with new stimuli and awareness."
What does it mean to travel?
«I respond with a passage taken from Elisa's travels , a partly autobiographical story present in the book: ' The charm of travel had accompanied her all her life. Not a journey intended as the fastest possible movement from one place to another, with the sole aim of reaching the desired destination, but the journey as an opportunity to meet, as a life experience, as a slow savor of landscapes, lights, colors that change. A train journey, sitting next to the window so as not to miss anything that passes by, a second class journey, sitting among ordinary people, among different people each with their own story to tell '. Here lies the meaning of my traveling and narrating in search of a less superficial and more attentive gaze towards men, things, nature, ready to let myself be surprised."