"We are all migrants" wants to remind us that emigration is a phenomenon as old as man.
Italy with suitcases symbolizes our origins made of migrations, contaminations, integrations.
Aosta, before its Roman foundation in 25 BC, was already inhabited by Celtic tribes and Gauls.
Adria - we are in Veneto - was controlled by the Etruscans and formed part of the "Etruria Padania", as opposed to the main area of Etruscan presence on the Tyrrhenian coast. Adria is an Etruscan name and means "day/light/east".
Ravenna, already populated by Umbrians and Romans, became the capital of the Heruli, a Germanic people, during the reign of Odoacer.
Catania, according to the historian Plutarch, owes its name to the Greek colonists who inhabited it from 720 BC. Katane in ancient Greek means grater and refers to the geological conformation of the lava territory on which the city at the foot of Etna stands.
From North to South, Italy exudes stories of migration, the Italian cultural heritage is an extraordinary synthesis of contaminations that make Italy the state with the largest number of UNESCO sites in the world.
What would the architecture of Palermo be without the Arab influence? What would Venice look like without the Byzantine and Austro-Hungarian influences? Would Rome be the same without its historic Jewish community?
An Italy covered with flags of those countries that welcomed us, and with as many flags of the countries of origin of the new Italians we are welcoming.
"If you raise a wall - wrote Italo Calvino - think about what remains outside".
