SAN GIUSTO

Exhibition / Happening, 2016

San Giusto is a project born from archival research in my hometown, a small northern Italian village of 3,000 inhabitants. The photographic archive, belonging to my grandfather Luigi “Gino” Fiorina, captures the simplicity, beauty, and vanished traditions of rural life from the 1930s to the early 1990s, portraying the people who shaped the town’s history.

Presented during the annual festival of the town’s patron saint, the open-air exhibition was freely accessible to all. Large-format images were printed on poster paper and pasted across the town, occupying spaces usually reserved for political posters. In a place where everyone knows each other and families have lived for generations, the installation became a shared journey through memory, sparking connections, emotions, and reflections on the past.

For me, the public nature of the installation was crucial: it returned the history to the community and honored my grandfather’s extraordinary work. The oversized images invited viewers to step into another time, recognizing echoes of the present—or even falling in love with someone long gone.