Teresita, Venice

Your story in 10 lines

 

I have always tried to shift the line of my horizon a little further – inside and outside myself. The passion for arts, architecture and design objects have been always the pretext to dig into the history of mankind – of men and women. When I was 19, I left the reassuring loved ones – together with a small city of Italian North East – to start to walk on the world’s streets until I landed in Venice while always trying to look for new lands. To emancipate my intellectual and professional progress.

 

 

You as reader: which ways, which places and which needs?

 

I read to console myself, to learn, to touch myself, to improve, to question myself, I read for the sake of reading. Where? Everywhere.

 

 

You’ve recently spent a long time researching about Turkey and the output is a ‘portrait’ of the city in form of essays and also remarkable selections of places, institutions and people. The publication has the merit to transform a complex and multifaceted academic research in an educational publication, useful for anyone even without specific skills. How did you succeed? Which is the part you love more of the book?

 

This publication arises from a fantastic elective affinity with Moira Valeri: I cultivated this bond during my PHD.

This academic research and adventure stands for the occasion, and the attempt, to fill a publishing gap able to tell transformation, frictions and dynamics that have been and are crossing the city. Our guide is part of a publishing project called ‘City Portraits’ curated by Alberto Ferlenga and Cristiano Guarnieri, it comes from a series of symposia, with the same name, held at Scuola di Dottorato of IUAV University.

I think that the most original part of the guide is the section dedicated to ‘Viewpoints’ and particularly the photographic essay signed by Gabriele Basilico.

 

 

Are you also a narrative writer?

 

Not really. I rather write poetic and biographic notes, which I perfectly blend in and around scientific essays. I write the stories of the emotions crossing me, I write to myself and to whom I love. I am a compulsive scribbler and an ungrammatical calligrapher.

 

 

How is hard to start and keep on such an intense activity as researcher in your city and in its institutions? 

 

I work mainly as conservator/curator and also belong to a research unit dedicated to Istanbul.

I had, and I have, the privilege to study and work in one of the most interesting universities in Italy dedicated to design disciplines in a wider sense.

Actually the faculty is under redefinition and I ask myself how to contribute to help the institution to improve and to evolve.

 

 

Which encounters do you normally have in your daily work routine?

 

My daily routine varies a lot, in relation to the projects I am working on (exhibitions, lectures or research).

I deeply love to work with students and young researchers.

 

 

Which is the most important achievement in your professional after so many years?

 

The editorial project on ‘Istanbul’ has surely been the most important one, above all for the reason that it has been shared with Moira Valeri and either thanks to the generosity and trust by Alberto Ferlenga.

This adventure bought us ups and down as on a roller-coaster, given the quantity of challenges we both faced.

We – me and Moira Valeri together – have made this tiny and beloved guide book, and also we bound our intellectual, human and friendship sisterhood, which I wish for everyone. To trust a colleague, to estimate her, to feel her support in sharing ideas and in improving us reciprocally, it has been an important slice while shaping the project.

 

 

Describe a fantastic happening you, as person, have had in recent time?

 

A secret dream that was sitting hidden in my heart just came true. I believe that without love our lives are hopeless and today I am privileged enough to have beside me an amazing man, who had recently asked me to marry him and my heart feels completely fulfilled.

 

 

What your city is giving to you and vice versa?

 

Venice is giving me peace, beauty and the right rhythm to live.

On my hand I have chosen it as a nest, to have my base here, in order to preserve her soul as the city where cultures are crossing and meeting, even if it is daily shrinking by loosing inhabitants.

 

 

Can you share your favourite cooking passion?

 

Veggie lasagne and panna cotta dressed with red fruits.

 

 

Which is your favourite wine or drink?

 

A freshly squeezed juice, once I wake up: ginger, carrots, orange and apple.

 

 

Which is your music or the book(s) – you are reading – with you now? And where they lay down exactly?

 

Music wise, I am addicted to The National and to The Cinematic Orchestra.

The words that I am currently reading and reading back are: L’arte di scomparire. L’arte di vivere con discrezione by Pierre Zaoui and Mario Luzi’s poems.

 

 

In which way do you try to live “slowly”, if you like to do so, in a city as yours?

 

Walking and hanging out only with beloved ones. Then I love to cross the Liberty Bridge with my bike ‘Libera’.

 

 

Which is a talent you have and the one you miss? 

 

I have the talent to easily connect people, things, ideas, but I miss the ability to give myself the right value and to recognize whom is abusing of it.

 

 

What have you learnt from life until now?

 

To trust life, which is bigger than my wildest dreams, and as my brother would have said “do not pose limits to the universe’s abundance”.

 

For those of you interested to meet Teresita, she will go to present her publication Istanbul, Ritratti di Città (Lettera Ventidue Editrice, ISBN 9788862421478) between Italy and Turkey:

• on April 1, 2016, 6.30 pm, at MAXXI Museum (Rome);
• on April 4, 6 pm, at IUAV Venice (Biblioteca dei Tolentini);
• on April 11, 6 pm, at Italian Cultural Institute (Istanbul);
• on April 12, 1 pm, at Izmir School of Economics (Istanbul)