In the landscape of contemporary artistic residencies, RADICI/RRËNJËT emerges as a unique experience, firmly and rigorously rooted in its territory—a project that goes beyond offering artists a mere production space, drawing them instead into a profound and immersive journey, where dialogue with the historical, cultural, and social context becomes the very heartbeat of an unceasing creative pursuit.
The project was born and developed in Pallagorio, a small Arbëresh village in the province of Crotone, the place where I was born and raised, and to which I return whenever I have the chance. It constitutes the central core of the research undertaken for my master’s thesis in Museum Education at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome. The residency, of which I am founder and curator, stands as an emblem of a renewed reflection on art—capable of embracing and reinterpreting the complexity of a centuries-old past, in constant tension with the present and the challenges of the future.
The very title, “RADICI,” translated into the Arbëresh¹ language as “RRËNJËT”, takes shape as a symbol of a profound and multifaceted connection with tradition, while also embodying a metaphor of continuous striving toward innovation. Roots are not conceived as static or anachronistic elements, but as a dynamic anchor which, though grounded in the past, has the power to nourish and generate new developments. This vision is immediately reflected in the structure of the project, which seeks not only to preserve and enhance the cultural heritage of the place, but also to activate it within a dialogue that embraces the contemporary, with the aim of fostering collective reflection on its evolution and on its meaning within today’s context.
During the summer residency of 2024, the artistic duo UCCI UCCI created an intervention that perfectly embodies this spirit, bringing contemporary art into dialogue with the deepest traditions of Arbëresh culture. Through a video installation and a participatory performance, the artists explored the historical roots of Pallagorio, inviting the local community to a shared reflection on the risks of cultural fragmentation and on the importance of nurturing historical memory to prevent the extinction of their cultural identity. The work is not merely an aesthetic reflection, but a true act of cultural reactivation—an encounter between contemporary visual language and the traditional heritage of a community.
As mentioned, the first artists hosted by the RADICI/RRËNJËT residency were the duo UCCI UCCI, composed of Salvatore Crucitti and Gloria Zeppilli. Their artistic practice intertwines with anthropological, ethnographic, and archival studies, developing within a continuous dialogue between art and social science.
Founded in 2020, the duo was born from the desire to explore art through an ethnographic approach, employing sociological analysis and aesthetic research as fundamental tools for constructing an artistic language. Their works emerge from immersion in a specific territory, where the context is investigated in its anthropological and environmental dimensions. Each artwork is therefore not presented as an isolated entity, but as something intrinsically connected to the territory and its dynamics.
Their research takes shape in performative and visual works, where languages, stories, traditions, rituals, and landscapes of communities interweave. Their creations are conceived as “hypertextual objects,” where each element refers to multiple meanings and connections.
Through a relational practice and the activation of anthropic landscapes, aesthetics and ethnographic research enter into dialogue, evoking unexpected theoretical and aesthetic short-circuits that emerge from artistic practice. This allows for a dimension where reflection is as poetic as it is political, addressing cultural and social issues through an interdisciplinary and relational artistic practice, with the intention of evoking territories, subcultures, and hidden or endangered cultures.
The work “Duhen drut të bëhet zjarri – Serve legna per fare un fuoco” (“Wood is needed to make a fire”), the final outcome of the residency, assumes a powerful symbolic value. It evokes the image of a fire that—like Arbëresh cultural identity—requires wood in order to burn: an eloquent metaphor of culture as something that must be continuously “nourished” in order to remain alive over time.
The work is composed of a video installation entitled “Ujët, dheu, zjarri – Water, Earth, Fire” and a performance titled “Era – The Wind.” The video-installation unfolds through three videos that reflect on the themes of depopulation, cultural drought, and the possible loss of both the tangible and intangible heritage of this ancient community. Each video explores a symbolic landscape—fire, earth, and water—as natural metaphors embodying the contemporary challenges of the community. Fire, for example, represents the vital force of tradition, but also the danger of extinction; earth symbolizes rootedness and a culture that grows and is nourished by the past; while water, flowing and constantly reshaping the landscape, becomes the symbol of a tradition that adapts and renews itself.
Within the videos, ritual elements typical of Arbëresh culture—including the Vallja, the traditional Arbëresh dance, as well as song and the sound of bells—are presented in a state of progressive disintegration.
The Vallja, a collective dance symbolizing unity, gradually dissolves, transforming into a solitary dance emblematic of a community which, despite its resilience, is slowly fragmenting.
Similarly, the ancient funeral chant Asteriòni, once sung collectively, is reduced to a single voice, that of Francesco Mazza.
Finally, Pietro, the bell ringer, continues to sound them every day, heir to a tradition that resists the passage of time, embodying the role of a living testimony to a memory that strives to remain alive.
The resulting effect is a visual and poetic reflection on the risk of disappearance of both tangible and intangible heritage—a call to the importance of preserving a culture that, though centuries-old, today faces the danger of dissolving into oblivion.
During the performance “Era – The Wind,” two performative actions took place, staging an emotional and cultural bridge between the community of Pallagorio and its roots, as well as between those who remained and those who, for various reasons, were forced to leave. The performance, deeply participatory in nature, strengthened intergenerational bonds, creating a space of collective memory. The reading of letters—written anonymously by those who live far away and those who stayed—wove together a tapestry of stories bridging the physical and emotional distance between members of the community.
Another central element of the performance was the use of an ancient handwoven bedsheet, part of my family’s dowry, laid on the ground. Upon it, each participant inscribed marks that made visible the time spent away from Pallagorio, recounting the stories of those who had lived in distance. Marked by the charred wood of the wildfires that devastate the region each year, the sheet assumed the role of a visible archive—a tangible testimony to the historical memory and resilience of the community.
The works created by the duo UCCI UCCI are not merely isolated artistic expressions; they act as activators of collective reflection, as vehicles of cultural rediscovery that challenge certainties and invite the search for new ways of relating to the past. Their practice thus becomes a political and social gesture—an invitation to the community of Pallagorio, and beyond, not to forget their roots but to nurture them so that they may flourish in a world that all too often seems to fall asleep in the speed of the present.
In an increasingly homogenized society, where traditions risk being forgotten, this project demonstrates how contemporary art can serve as a tool of preservation, valorization, and innovation—a means to safeguard the past while at the same time promoting a creative reflection on the future. Within this framework, RADICI/RRËNJËT presents itself not merely as an aesthetic undertaking, but as an urgent and necessary intervention for the territory it engages with, and one of significant cultural value.
¹ The Arbëresh communities were established following the Albanian diasporas caused by the Ottoman-Turkish domination of Albania from the 15th to the 18th century. They settled in the fiefs granted by King Alfonso I of Aragon of Naples to the Albanian commander Giorgio Castriota Skanderbeg, in recognition of the military support he had provided. Today, there are 50 Arbëresh communities in Italy—41 towns and 9 hamlets—spread across seven regions of central and southern Italy: Abruzzo, Molise, Apulia, Campania, Basilicata, Calabria, and Sicily, with a total population of around 100,000. The region with the largest number of Arbëresh settlements is Calabria, which counts 30 towns and 3 hamlets, located in the provinces of Cosenza, Crotone, and Catanzaro. Beyond their language, the Arbëresh people share a vast cultural heritage nearly six centuries old, encompassing rituals, songs, traditions, and crafts. In some communities in the provinces of Cosenza and Palermo, the Greek-Byzantine Catholic rite (Greek Catholicism) is still practiced, though it has disappeared from the communities in the Crotone area, where it was replaced by the Latin rite imposed by bishops in the 17th century. In 2020, the Arbëresh cultural heritage was proposed by the Francesco Solano University Foundation (UNICAL) to the Italian National Commission for UNESCO as a candidate for recognition as Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, within the project MOTI I MADH (“The Great Time”), which focuses on Arbëresh spring rituals—among which the Vallja, the Arbëresh Easter round dance, stands out.