NEMERIA
Palinsesti 2015 - Palazzo Altan, San Vito al Tagliamento (Pordenone)

"The man who walks slowly through wild lands will just need to desire a city». It is the opening and closing line of the tale on the city of Nemeria, written by Alessandro Ruzzier. His work approaches the narrative language of Calvino, the author of Le città invisibili (Invisible Cities), by analyzing his way of assembling and combining the structure of a text. The project began in 2009 and has been revised for this edition of Palinsesti exposition. The writer has already showed his desire of measuring up with Calvino’s writing in the series Una città parallela, (1997).
Falsehood is the key point of Nemeria. The tale is credible, although the city it describes - as well as the twin city developing symmetrically underground - does not appear in the 55 ones listed by Marco Polo with Kublai Kan. It recalls underground cities like Derinkuyu or Kaymakli in Anatolia. The writer proves the existence of the city with false, artificial evidences; however, they are so ingeniously assembled that Nemeria can be actually seen, at least from those who look, observe, listen, smell those evidences (videos, objects, organic materials). Ruzzier reintroduces Calvino’s power of metalanguage and the “art of Combination” in order to remind us that truth is not as important as the power of words, through which invisible cities can be created (both existing and not existing ones).
Antonio Garlatti
from Città che si vedono catalogue - Palinsesti 2015

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