The hospitality and workshop project “Alte terre” was paradoxically born in me amid the waters of the Venice lagoon, where I lived for twenty-one years, from my university studies to my stable job at the Catholic Patriarchate. It was the high water (due to abnormal excavations at the port mouths for the construction of MOSE) that forced me to look to a high place to seek refuge.
It was the year 2008. Having always been connected to the Valle Maira since my youthful experience of summer camps, as I was born not far from the valleys that surround the entire province of Cuneo, I roamed far and wide to find a home that would spark in me a not too reckless desire. Right at the beginning of the valley, at almost a thousand meters above sea level, I found this house that was already beautiful in my eyes, perched on a sunny rock and already inhabited by two families who, like me, had left the city for the mountains.
The Podio (or Püy in Occitan) reflects that simple and rugged beauty that reminds us of the poverty of the people who came before us, and who, with what little they had, possessed the craftsmanship and skill of stone and wood, which are deeply rooted in every dwelling and many scattered hamlets in the valley. A plaque commemorates the fact that in 1944, a Nazi-fascist massacre brought the hamlet to extinction. The fire burned everything, but the population returned and rebuilt. For stronger ties to the land. This is why continuing life up here also holds significance in the memory and resistance of other lives.
After the purchase, restoration, and installation of utilities, fate led me to win a competition that allowed me to start the third phase of the project: the concrete possibility of an artisan workshop and two rooms – or rather two mini apartments – for hosting guests. And here, the story is yet to be written. Many projects are in my mind, from courses for those who want to learn directly in the workshop, to new painting techniques on glass and bamboo, but also the opportunity to collaborate with local artisans who can complement my painting with wood or iron, or partnerships with public schools.
We’ll let history write what the steps will simply follow… and to those who would like to come to this beautiful and sunny hamlet, we already extend our welcome, myself and the two families who are permanently here with me. The name “Alte terre” echoes the literary memory of the first book I read about the Alps in Cuneo: Mariano Allocco’s “Ex sudore populi” (2009). I hope that this elevated space may also recall the many lands traversed in the history of salvation, where theophanies have been revealed to a man, to a people, in search of a place to live…