Vite
A voyage in five cities, three continents, sixteen homes.
To explore the different meanings of light, revealing lives.
Foscarini - Vite 2020
FOTO/VIDEO Gianluca Vassallo
TESTI Flavio Soriga
REAL PEOPLE AT THE CENTRE PERSON OF THE STORY
The desire to talk about light by starting with those who experience inside their most personal space: the home
VITE is a journey that takes us into real homes - from Copenhagen to New York, Naples to Shanghai to Venice - accompanied by the artist and photographer Gianluca Vassallo and the writer Flavio Soriga. People are at the centre of the images and the narrative, as our eyes roam freely through real spaces of life, in which lamps produce the magic that transforms and sets the character of the space.
Arno' a Napoli. Vomero
Foscarini chooses an original way to talk about lamps that have become icons of Made in Italy. In this dimension, the home is not a set but a place to find shelter, relaxation, to spend time with loved ones. Foscarini lamps appear in the videos and the photos, but they are part of a forthright context, a true dwelling, offering glimpses of everyday life and intimacy. The viewer feels like part of the tableau, even if the homes are not our homes.
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Jacopo a New York. Harlem
Paolo a Venezia. Santa Croce
"We met some truly special people, who very patiently opened their spaces to us, where Foscarini enters on tiptoe. In this project, what changes is the vantage point: the choice of the angle from which to shoot the scene, which as Antonioni taught us is a moral choice, which speaks of where you stand, how you see the world. In this project, the product is no longer the central focus, because people are at the centre. A change of perspective, a statement of principle. People make the choices, and we want to be part of their emotional panorama, their domestic panorama."
- Carlo Urbinati, Founder and President Foscarini
Maria a Napoli. Vomero
Anthia a Shangai. Hongkou
LIGHT - IN THE HOMES OF OTHERS
A project that unfolds in a narrative of images, videos and words
Sixteen houses and the people who live in them, 5 different cities on 3 continents, images captured by Gianluca Vassallo and narrated by the writer Flavio Soriga, for a production that took over a year to make. The fundamental factor has been the authentic relationship between Vassallo and the protagonists of VITE, first of all, and then their rapport with Soriga, who returned to those places to absorb the meaning of these homes through very personal writings, exploring their relationship with the cities, each one with its own special light: the light of the North, the South, the East and the West.
"Every time the door of one of these lives I have portrayed was opened, over these months, I searched for a Sunday, 40 years ago, for the wonder of that particular light I experienced when I was 6 years old, in a totally new house, with the scent of fresh paint to welcome us, and the sounds arriving from upstairs. It was the light I imagined crossing the life of the people who lived up there." - Gianluca Vassallo
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Arno' a Napoli. Vomero
Maria a Napoli. Vomero
VITE is a project that explores the meaning of home, light, the relationship between inside and outside, between life in the home and outdoor space, with the city and its human, architectural, atmospheric and historic, personal and public, singular and plural characteristics. A narrative with which Foscarini, with pride and conviction, makes its own viewpoint evolve in the most authentic way.
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"It's not
the Mediterranean,
but..."
A friend of mine, Sardinian like me, has lived in New York for ten years. Her husband Avram is a jazz musician, the son of Russian immigrants from Brooklyn. They take me to dinner at Fanelli's, I place I've never entered though it seems like I've known it all my life. Everyone swaps greetings and hugs, customers and barmen, waiters. A football game can be seen on the TV screen. I ask my friend if he's a fan. "I grew up in Brooklyn, I liked soccer, and I liked jazz", he replies...
Carlo a New York. Brooklyn
"In the homes of others there is life, stories, people. I couldn't dream of a better job than this one: to be sent to various cities in the world to knock on the doors of strangers who are happy to welcome me inside, and to answer my questions. To write true stories, about real people, who like everyone live in stupendous or more or less normal houses; to write after having been face to face with men and women I didn't know just a moment ago. This is what I have done for Foscarini." - Flavio Soriga