Tomaso Clavarino: Padanistan
In the past thirty years the word Padania has become part of everyday life in Italy. It refers to an area in Northern Italy that extends from the Alps to the Adriatic Sea.
A territory that exists in the ideas of many, but that geographically, culturally and juridically remains undefined.
A region perceived in the collective narrative as a compact, coherent whole, but which turned out to be a set of fragments that have nothing to do with one another.
Padanistan is a visual investigation into the identity of this area, a personal view developed as a long road trip along the main national road that connects Torino to Venezia.
The sense of disorientation is perhaps the main emotion we feel when passing through those places, as if history had withdrawn, leaving behind a collection of rubble.
Padanistan is a journey in which outer space and inner space are confused, a sort of "emotional geography" of disorientation, creating a new conceptual space in order to question the existence of Padania. The title Padanistan deliberately hijacks the nationalistic rhetoric found within Padanian politics. It questions the notion of place, of boundaries and of defined identities, directly confronting the singular and divisive vision of Italian culture.
