RADIO JUDRIO. LIVING INSIDE THE BORDER. A COUPLE PROJECT

by BARBARA PASCOLI

Fifteen kilometers from the first supermarket and ten from the first bar, Oborza has a total of twenty-two inhabitants: less than a city apartment building. Massimo Crivellari and I got there in 2017, driven by the desire to leave behind some ballast and give a new direction to our lives, almost like pioneers.

At the time we lived in the plains, in a town in the Isonzo area that, over the years, had been trapped between ring roads and shopping centers and had lost much of the surrounding countryside. We dreamed of a little house in the countryside, but the Collio or the Karst, close and desirable, were out of our reach. So when we came across an ad for a house for sale at an affordable price, we got in the car and went to see. Where? In a remote hamlet near Castelmonte, with a name that sounded ridiculous and, even, a little exotic: Oborza.

As the road entered the Judrio valley and nature took over more and more, dodging holes and low branches we repeated to ourselves that we would never ever be able to live so far from shops, bars, cinemas. And instead… We were so fascinated by that house, in that small town made up of vegetable gardens, fruit trees and woods, that we would have taken it even if we had been told that it was haunted by spirits.

“Look at the sea, at the bottom!” – said Massimo once he went out into the garden, pointing his finger towards the plain.

A few months later we moved, without realizing that by buying the house, we would be becoming part of a community. Our city presumption, not very inclined to relations with the neighborhood, was about to be overwhelmed. The choice was simple: to be accepted by the natives (in the sense of natives) or to live ignoring them, as if they were not there. We didn’t think twice. In addition to nature, which in these places is – fortunately – wild, we have also decided to confront ourselves with a mentality, for better or for worse, just as wild.

The “Radio Judrio” project starts from here, from our personal experience, to talk about life in the highlands that are not touristy and, for this reason, forgotten by the State. As Marco Albino Ferrari writes in “The mountain we want”, it is not only the altitude that makes the mountain.

With the tools we had – photography for Massimo, writing for me – we tried to give voice to our new homeland. The result is a book, published by Kappa Vu, and an exhibition that has already been hosted by the SMO (Museum of Landscapes and Narratives of San Pietro al Natisone) and the LetterAltura festival in Verbania.

In the book, through fourteen stories and twenty-eight photographs, we deal with the themes of border, abandonment, love, distance from civilization and the distance – sometimes even deep – between those who come from outside and those who have always lived here. The best to come out are the representatives of the second group, the last guardians of a scale of values linked to a world that no longer exists elsewhere.

For the exhibition, on the other hand, Massimo worked on suspended landscapes, with soft colors, often devoid of human figures but never of their intervention: an abandoned hunting shack, an old car in a meadow, glasses in a bar. The format chosen for the photographs is small, in harmony with the brevity of the stories.

The vision that emerges is unanimous: two gazes that, in this valley, have found a new harmony.

Massimo Crivellari and Barbara Pascoli are husband and wife.

Professional photographer, Massimo Crivellari deals with industry and architecture. He has exhibited in solo and group exhibitions in Italy and abroad. His latest solo exhibition, Lampi, was hosted by the Museum of the Great War in Gorizia (November 2023 – January 2024). His research on the man-made landscape, which investigates the interaction between man and the environment, earned him the Friuli Venezia Giulia Photography Award of the CRAF. He has published several photographic books dedicated to nature, architecture and territory, including L’incanto delle Lagune, Alpi e Prealpi, L’Isonzo, Il Carso, Trieste, Il Collio.

Marketing consultant, Barbara Pascoli has published short stories and novels. Since 2021 he has curated the literary competition Prepotto. The tales of Schioppettino , promoted by the Municipality of Prepotto (UD), where he holds the role of councilor for culture.