Il me país al è colòur smarít - My Town is of a Lost Color is a long-term personal project that traces the lands shaped by the Isonzo River, in Friuli Venezia Giulia—a border region in northeastern Italy, sculpted over centuries by conflict, migration, and the slow weaving together of Slavic, Germanic and Latin languages and identities.
The project began in 2 019, when I returned home after many years away. I remember driving out of my village, and as I looked out of the car window, I saw the landscape with unfamiliar eyes—as though I were seeing it, truly seeing it, for the first time.
That moment became an impulse: to photograph these places. At first, almost as a form of therapy—a way to reconnect with home. Then, it grew into a deeper need to tell the story of this land.
In exploring its identity and layered history, I chose to focus on the territories closest to me: those that follow the winding course of the Isonzo River and the people who live along its banks.
The river begins in Slovenia, where it is called the Soča. As it crosses into Italy, it takes on a new name: Isonzo.
Along its path, I follow an emotional current—moving from one village to the next, from one encounter to another—guided by a flow of memories and voices, carried by the river’s silent persistence.
The title is borrowed from a poem by writer and filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini, who, like me, was born in these Friulian lands before moving to Rome. His words capture the sense of melancholy and disorientation that still lingers in this borderland—where identity, history, and belonging blur like the course of the river itself.
