Viaggio a Itaca
Traveling I have seen new places and different cultures that fascinated me, but above all I had the opportunity to get to know myself better: my fragilities, my fears, my desires. Traveling was therefore a tool of personal improvement. The key was the people, their smiles, because the other is the mirror where I can see myself: by knowing you I know myself.
During my travels, I observed with my own eyes the negative impact of mass tourism on the environment and the population. The journey, in this case, becomes an item like an object: I buy, I consume, and I throw away. This creates a vicious circle where money is at the centre of human relationships, and the tourist is received merely for profit. Moreover, the hosts feel alienated by the transformation of their land, adapted to consumerism, with a strong environmental impact.
In August 2014 I was in Cartagena de Indias, Colombia. A fascinating place, full of pirate’s stories, rum and talking parrots. I still remember when I was in awe for the beauty of some men with skin as dark as the night and blue eyes like the ice: behold the mix between Africa and Europe in human form. Wonderful!
However, Cartagena is also a place full that suffers under the pressure of tourism. It is visible and you can feel it. Of course, it provides the citizens with a source of income. However, they are so annoyed that they feel like strangers in their own city because it’s the European and American travellers who dictate the way of things. By spending and buying, in fact, they act as if they were the local bosses.
I was pretty embarrassed to be considered like any other tourist. I made me sweaty, ashamed, and quite nervous. I dragged myself through the streets trying to look as Latin American as possible, with my Argentinian accent, but alas, I was just one of the many.
I analysed different tourist cities and came to the conclusion that mainstream tourism brings wealth at first, but which eventually has a negative impact and the crisis due to Covid-19 has shown how inappropriate the system of tourism is.
Lately "experiential tourism" has been gaining popularity as a more sustainable and alternative form of tourism. It surely sounds attractive, but it does not change the way travelling is conceived. Instead, it merely changes the modality of consumption, reproducing therefore the same commodification of human relationships within a logic of consumption, and therefore leaving the problem unresolved.
"Viaggio a Itaca" [journey to Ithaca] is a project for the city of Messina (Sicily). It proposes a new form of tourism that offers travellers thoughts, ideas and concrete actions, without the strict commercial tie. Its scope is to achieve mutual enrichment by visiting our land and embracing the values of brotherhood, solidarity and knowledge.
Therefore, we promote the encounter between travellers and the cultural and historical side of the city. We propose activities that integrate travellers and locals as well as the communication with people who speak a different language, to make them feel part of the social fabric.
The goal is to consider the tourist as a resource to increase and improve the coexistence between people of different cultures and social backgrounds, advising and planning a stay in a fair and sustainable way that is in harmony with the rhythms of the place.
Next to being an important port in the centre of the Mediterranean, Messina is also a place full of beautiful landscapes and whose “straight” has inspired many artists and writers over the centuries. Therefore, we want to create a "slow" tourism, which gives the traveller the time to become aware of the place he or she is in and which is in harmony with the land. We therefore privilege moving around on foot, by bike, with public transport, to fully experience the connexion and the emotion of the sea.
The project doesn’t just pay attention to the travellers. It also aims at sensitising our local hosts to our culture of hospitality, which is typical of Mediterranean countries, but which we are missing a bit. “Viaggio a Itaca", therefore, also turns to all of us, people of Messina and Sicily, to express our sense of humanity and hospitality towards others again, especially now, after this tough time, with the desire and strength to start over.
I dedicate this poem by Constantine P. Cavafy
Ithaca
When you set out for Ithaka
ask that your way be long,
full of adventure, full of instruction.
The Laistrygonians and the Cyclops,
angry Poseidon – do not fear them:
such as these you will never find
as long as your thought is lofty, as long as a rare
emotion touch your spirit and your body.
The Laistrygonians and the Cyclops,
angry Poseidon – you will not meet them
unless you carry them in your soul,
unless your soul raise them up before you.
Ask that your way be long.
At many a Summer dawn to enter
with what gratitude, what joy
ports seen for the first time;
to stop at Phoenician trading centres,
and to buy good merchandise,
mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
and sensuous perfumes of every kind,
sensuous perfumes as lavishly as you can;
to visit many Egyptian cities,
to gather stores of knowledge from the learned.
Have Ithaka always in your mind.
Your arrival there is what you are destined for.
But don’t in the least hurry the journey.
Better it last for years,
so that when you reach the island you are old,
rich with all you have gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaka to give you wealth.
Ithaka gave you a splendid journey.
Without her you would not have set out.
She hasn’t anything else to give you.
And if you find her poor, Ithaka hasn’t deceived you.
So wise you have become, of such experience,
that already you’ll have understood what these Ithakas mean.