Procida 2022

Voci al Vento – Stories of Journeys and Travelers is the co-writing workshop we curated with Aste&Nodi for the program “Procida 2022 – Italian Capital of Culture.”

The workshop, held between July and August 2022, aimed to explore and narrate Procida not only through the eyes and words of the islanders – historical memories of the place – but also sought to involve the new inhabitants of the island. The workshop collected stories of journeys and travelers living on and passing through the island, intertwining them and weaving a new narrative that, once returned to Procida, we hope can be integrated into its traditional oral storytelling.

“Voices in the Wind” engaged approximately ten participants from various Italian cities and transformed them into “storyonauts” who, following in the footsteps of sailors and navigators, immersed themselves in a sea of words, places, people, and images. In a project that unfolded both on the mainland and on the ferries reaching the island, the storyonauts fished for tales of life, journeys, adventures, and escapades by sea and land. They encountered the past and the living imagination of modern and current Homeric characters.

We met Achilles and Odysseus, sailors and mariners, Circe and Penelope, the island of women in ritual and anticipation, the Lotus Eaters and the Trojans, old and new inhabitants in an Ithaca of the 21st century.

After the initial ethnographic phase, the storyonauts – in the creative writing workshop phase, led by screenwriter Lorenzo Bagnatori – intertwined the voices of the people of Procida, which, much like in the Homeric poems, transformed into one grand story. This narrative was then presented to the audience of Procida in an immersive theatrical performance directed by Luigi Morra.