Ci sono

The chat records the arrivals of migrants: brought ashore by the Coast Guard, the Guardia di Finanza, or by private rescue organizations. People saved from unseaworthy boats or pulled directly from the water. Their arrival carries hope, but also grief for drowned companions, fear of being pushed back, and the exhaustion of a perilous journey.

The work translates these fleeting digital messages into a tangible medium. On six meters of cotton fabric, the chat bubbles appear in the familiar iOS layout, complete with date pills, grey timestamps, reaction icons, and the small blue checkmarks. Each message is stitched, the senders anonymized: it is not about individuals, but about the calls themselves – about the constant “Ci sono,” the willingness to make one’s time and strength available.

The embroidery begins on the first day the artist herself joined this chat. She was present at countless arrivals at Molo Favaloro, helped on site, and experienced the nervous waiting, the sudden departure, the hope and fear. The work is therefore both documentation and poetic distillation: a protocol of solidarity that makes the tension between matter-of-factness and drama visible.

Installed on the wall, the piece unfolds like a real chat history, read from top to bottom. Yet its length exceeds the frame: six meters of fabric gather on the floor, swelling like a wave that never subsides. The text runs on, endless, just as the arrivals do not cease. Some days are dense, others remain empty – filled instead with the fear that the route may have closed, that boats may be vanishing unseen.

“Ci sono” speaks of a community that acts, where politics remain absent. It reveals that help is never a single event, but an unending sequence of gestures. And it remembers those who never reached Molo Favaloro – the dead at sea, who do not appear in the chat and yet resonate in every line.