ABOUT

The German noun Heimat has no exact equivalent in English. It is an oblique reference to the place where you were born, where you feel at home. It is a sort of emotional place where you belong, rather than any geographical space. Carlo Rusca's work may be an example of Heimat. Just may. Because he calls it Turistica. Which is something else, something with other implications. Yet his refined black and white photographs, the details of a life that reflects on itself, point in a direction that speaks of the need to investigate one's roots and the desire to recognize.

Turistica has become a book that accompanies us on a journey to a private and peripheral Locarno, where nothing happens, where everything could happen and which may not even be Locarno. We are introduced to a sort of dream populated by the mist, unexpected animals, anonymous architecture, few friendly presences, and timeless objects. The refined and rarefied photography of Carlo Rusca works on memory and generates new memories. Which in turn create the possibility for the author and us, his readers, to recognize ourselves in a different, possible Heimat.