Santu Vitu

This is my house. These are the stairs that go all around the house, and I was small and playing all the time near my house. Also, I added my friends, and we used to play with “la fune” e con la palla. Vicino abitava la mia amica del cuore. Quando ci stancavamo di stare in questa zona, che era piuttosto ristretta, andavamo in un parco, che era tutto un falso livello, però c’era un posto dove potevamo fare “la campana” e quindi giocavamo alla campana con le amiche del vicinato. Il vicinato era bello: tutte le porte erano aperte, i bambini andavano da una casa all’altra, le mamme non avevano problemi, sapevano che stavano sempre insieme e c’era sempre una mamma che li controllava. Ci sono dei ricordi, quando giocavamo c’era mia nonna che tesseva al telaio e quando giocavamo dovevamo fare la maglia, un tanto di maglia, prima di andare a giocare. Allora tutte le amichette mi aiutavano per fare prima, un po’ una un po’ l’altra mi aiutavano per far crescere questa maglia, così dopo potevamo andare a giocare tutti quanti insieme. Questi sono i miei ricordi. Le amiche ancora sono là e ci incontriamo, ci scriviamo e ricordiamo questi bei tempi insieme. Naturalmente parlo degli anni 50, perché adesso questo parco al momento non c’è più, ci sono palazzine: è tutto cambiato. Però nei miei ricordi è sempre così. Quando penso all’infanzia e alle mie amiche più care, penso a questo luogo, dove trascorrevamo tutti i pomeriggi al ritorno dalla scuola.

Maddalena, 76, Quebec

Istanbul

I was born in Istanbul, many years ago, when Istanbul was still a cosmopolitan city. So, I tried to represent a place which was very important for me, which was the heart of this cosmopolitan city. A city which was split in two. There was a large part of the city which was beyond these bridges, beyond the Golden Horn, which was Istanbul, what we called Istanbul, and it was where Turks lived. Then, there was this other side, beyond the Golden Horn – between the Golden Horn and the Bosphorus, which is at the bottom – which was called Pera and that’s where all the international community lived – not an international community like New York's. It was people who had roots there, some were Greek, some were Armenians, some were Jews, Spanish speaking Sephardic Jews, some were Italians or French. Essentially, we had no identity. This was the heart of my first memory. This is a part which looms very large on this map, but it was not so large, and it’s where I met children of all nationalities and languages. We all played in all possible languages, but not in Turkish, and that’s where our mothers would sit, in a tea garden, having tea and ice cream. This is an ice-cream stand, where we would buy a cone. These were two golden stone lions, which were guarding the entrance of what was called Taksim Gezi Zoo. This park has been at the center of big protests, because the authorities were going to raze it down and build a Mosque. And this big Mosque has been built on the spot of this very international playground, and that’s what I wanted to remember. The rest is also the city I remember, but I won’t talk about that.

Donatella, 83, Torino

Lac St. Louis

Let me show you a a picture of my childhood. Where I grew up. I was born there, I was married there. Just a little corner in Lachine, and that’s where my dad would ….. Well. Let me try to explain a little bit: I lived on the corner of 44th Avenue in Lachine. It’s hard to explain this. We lived right here and the water is right here, Lac St. Louis. Every night, when my dad would come home from work, after supper, we would take a walk just up the street: to the lake, sit on the bench, and then walk to the lighthouse, every day, and throw rocks and see the fishermen fishing, for example. And… what else can I tell you?... This little corner was very important, because it was kind of the heart of our little area. We had a playground in the back, a huge playground in the back. What else did we have? We had our school, our elementary school. We would had to cross the street to go to school. And even in days of storm, my mum would kick us out and say: “No, you live across the street, you have to go to school!” And the church was right next to the school, so we had to go to church every Sunday, as well: “No, no, you have to go to church otherwise the priest would say the M…. family hasn’t sent their children. You have to go to church!” We had a hospital just around the corner, right here, where every time an ambulance went run by, we would say “Oh my goodness, who is it?” And we had to do the sign of the cross and pray that the person inside the ambulance was fine. That’s about it. There is so much more, but it’s just the memory of going to the lake and being with my dad. And my mum, of course, but with dad.

Anna, 62, Quebec

Burnaby, Vancouver

“Thank You, Marlene.” This is my memory map. My family moved to Vancouver, when I was two and then we lived there till I finished elementary school. And then after that we moved to Australia. I only revisited this neighbourhood once, as an adult. But from 2 to around 11, this was home. I have vivid, vivid memories of it, as a child. So, you can see myself here. This is the house we lived in. I remember the house. That was the centre of the universe, obviously. My father was a big horseshoe player, so there was a horseshoe pitch where all the neighbors came, on the weekends. My mother had a vegetable garden; I remember that. At the bottom of our street was Burnaby Park, which is probably twice as big as Mount Royal Park, but in my childhood memory it was an infinitely large park. We would spend weekends there; we would spend our entire summer weeks, leaving in the morning after breakfast, exploring the park, discovering trails and pass. So, it takes a large part of my memory. It has mythic proportions in my memories: I had so many adventures in there. My brother fell off, while crossing a ravine, clasped a tree, fell down, a branch would poke to his face. He has a permanent scar on his cheek. Hadn’t we been all together, he would have a terrible disfiguring on his face. What else I remember is coming to the end of the street, there was the school. Of course, the school is a big part of my memory: my school friends, the playground…. If I turned the other direction, at the end of the street, there was the Municipal Library. And the Municipal Library completely changed my life. I don’t have any idea what the National Library looks like. But I remember a big temple of knowledge. Between the ages of 9 and 12, I think I read every single book that was in the childhood and the young-adults section of the library. And then I vaguely remember that if I turned this direction, from the library in New Westminster, you would eventually end up in Vancouver. You had these skyscrapers off in the distance. That kind of encapsulates everything that was important to me, as a child, between 2 and 12.

Guy, 67, Quebec

Crocevia

Part 1. This is where I think I was born. It’s a place in Italy, called Crocevia. This was my parents’ house and that’s me sitting on the steps. Next door to me, there was an old lady, who had been to America.

She was known to me as Pasqualina l’americana. Sometimes, my mother used to have to go to the fields with my father, and Pasqualina l’americana would take care of me. She used to tell my mother: “He sits on the steps, and he doesn’t move until you come home.” I was very strange, I guess.

From here, I took my walk, as Marlene suggested, and I come to – well, yes, this is the crocevia, this is the old road coming here. And then there’s a little plot of land right in the middle of the intersection, and we have a statue of the Virgin Mary there. From here, I walk down the road and I come to my grandmother’s house, which I haven’t finished drawing. In my grandmother’s house I have memories of the well, which was a little place in front of all the houses of the masseria, which I remember very very well. I remember the fresh waters that would come from that well, and that’s something I’d like to put in there. I don’t know if I’ll be able to. There is also my grandmother’s house, and when my parents went to America I was there, in the room and I remember overlooking the house and the window…* past the house and into the fields and the mountain in the background, where San Martino is. Then, later on, I composed a poem on San Martino and that’s one of my favorite pieces of writing.

Part 2. * I was paying attention to my grandmother’s house. There’s a window which looks out west to America. So, that’s one of my dreams. On this side, there’s a …. – which I had forgotten to draw in last time – there’s the school where I went, and it is in my memories. Out here, there’s a place where we went for school outings, and there I remember in particular the violets which were in the fields and also clover. This is a place that I remember deeply. It shows the love of nature which I have always found to be a revelation of God’s creation. And that is a very important part of what I wanted to say!

Angelo, 75, Quebec