The project is inspired by “The game of life. Autobiographical kit. Thirty proposals for the pleasure of talking about oneself “written by Duccio Demetrio (1997), founder, together with Saverio Tutino, in 1998, of the Free University of Autobiography of Anghiari, a community of research, training, dissemination of the culture of memory.
The experience at the L.U.A. is engaging both for the place (Anghiari is a small and beautiful medieval village perched on the plain of the famous battle of Anghiari painted by Leonardo da Vinci) and for the atmosphere that you breathe attending the seminars: listening and reading stories, writing your own of stories, sharing with other fellow travellers. Confidences, experiences, dreams, walks are intertwined. All seasoned with the scent of bread and pizza that spreads from a small pizzeria on the corner of one of the main squares.
Returning to their homes, everyone takes home memories, solicitations, tools and the desire to be able to spread autobiographical thinking to others, of how writing about oneself can help them learn more about personal aspects that they did not know, to take self-care, to esteem yourself more. At the same time, the desire arises to give testimony of one’s own history and also to know those of others, especially of those who think they no longer have time to tell about themselves, which is useless.
This is where the proposal to collect the stories of the guests of the residence for the elderly in Santa Croce sull’Arno comes from, with the support of the municipal administration and the involvement of the council commission. From this work, four small books were born that collect recipes, proverbs, peasant sayings and finally the passions that the elderly shared with the operators prepared to welcome them. Where the memory of the guests had faded, the involvement of family members helped to integrate the missing parts, with pleasure and also fun on the part of all. Small stories, brief memories but like so many drops of water make the sea so the life story of each one, together with that of the others, represents the collective memory of a people, of a country.
