Places that have stories to tell

Sacred places are places of the soul, of comfort in common rites, from birth to death, in mourning and in joy, places of community, of visions, when frescoes spoke to people who were often illiterate.

There are buildings that seem to be detached from the environmental logic in which they are placed, and which hold a mysterious aura. They are "metaphysical" places, agonising survivors of worlds that have now vanished or curious alien objects, which seem to come from possible future worlds. They are spaces, geometries, materials that make up suspended atmospheres, on the borderline between reality and dream, between real and invisible.

Museums are places where works of art lead us by the hand, places sacred to the muses, places of transit and passage, where the gaze turns upside down to rest on the part of the objects: works of art seduce us, capture us. They come to tantalise our tastes, our emotions, our culture. In museums we are looked at everywhere by the works, they look at us and concern us - a question of mastering the gaze.

War with arms, in the Italian-speaking part of Switzerland, hasn't been seen for a long time. But in the past there has been and it was feared that it would return. As happens, it has left permanent marks on the territory, as well as in the soul.

I feel naturally drawn by those places that seem stuck in time. They are both fascinating and intriguing. They seem to have a pre-existing narrative at their core and they instantly grab our attention by connecting the past, the present and the future. In that sense they are very cinematographic. Luckily, Ticino is rich in them. 

I'm particularly interested in those places that can tell stories. Monte Ceneri is one of these and has great cinematic potential: mankind has been crossing it for years, scattering clues, signs and hints of narrative.

A movie starts with a script, a story and stories need to be sought out, pursued or if you're lucky, picked up and smoothed over when you stumble upon them.