It happened like two friends meeting. In this case a Milanese and a Parmesan, intent on drawling and rolling the consonants due to the distant imprinting of a stepmother Story. And perhaps it is not even a coincidence that the meeting starts on the bank (shore) of the Milanese body of water par excellence: “el Navili” (the Naviglio). Serious and meticulous, due to the noble genesis of hydraulic engineering, for the centuries-old mission that had been entrusted to him of transporting, when other ways just did not exist.
Over there instead, just down from the Apennines, “la Pärma”. Undisciplined and fickle (voladóra) like a young girl, the stream that crosses the former “petite capital” of the Duchy. A special symmetry of rare circumstances united, and attractive opposites. Banks of water where a village first appeared, then a city. Trades and manufactures. Arts and crafts.
This for me was the encounter with the Naviglio. A subject that has always been photographed by everyone. But those poses of an older, somewhat snobbish model, painted over in the misty twilight of Christmas lights, or on fire like a very Milanese “Stonehenge” due to the complicity of a spot-on equinox, didn’t interest me. That’s why even that stormy day, with wind and pouring rain, I went to see him. To photograph it. Water in the water. Without worrying about having only one hand free to hold a fluttering umbrella. As far as possible, it was the camera that needed repair.
Patiently I waited for her, followed her, observed her: her people. The one that passes by there every day. Hasty. It enters, it exits, it climbs over it. I don’t know if he observes it, it’s obvious that “he” is there. Like disturbed ants around the anthill: up and down the stairs of the bridges, perhaps to “padlock” some disordered love on the balustrade of the “Merini”. In the comings and goings, I overheard the shouting on the banks, barely perceptible to break the iconic silence of the photograph. Or the other people, alien. Stunning. Vocalant. Tumultuous waves of bodies that invade banks and boats. They crowd, they elbow, they assault that coveted pulpit just above the water. Dressed up lay priestesses, dedicated to regenerating pagan rites in an “uninterrupted fashion week” for changing nightlife.
Moreover, careless, out of venial presumption “he” knows: they pass, they will pass. He always stays where he is, in semblance of immobility. So much for centuries he was the one to look after, with difficulty, every trade and need for expansion of the future metropolis.
When I put my eye back on the camera screen to go a little further, I met his lines. The clarity of those geometric signs, essential to infinity. The Naviglio, I must admit, had a diligent and scrupulous surveyor, who was busy crossing rulers, set squares, protractors on the maps, without leaving any curb on its banks to chance.
Once the threshold has been crossed, the observer will be able to chase after that distinctive sign. Imagine that “he” is there. One photograph, however, has remained in my imagination. Sudden and seductive it appeared to me to the tired and satisfied gaze of the last shot, never taken. A sign of the art daughter of the “ripe”: the big hands of Gigi Pedroli, intertwined to hold foamy goblets for “happy toasts” mirrored in the still water of the “Navili”.