I only take pics

  Bishkek Kyrgyzstan I had the opportunity to live in Bishkek for two months, while I was volunteering for a contemporary art association.  Those two months were very intense, and they literally flew between amazing people, wonderful landscapes and discovering a new culture. I think that what I brought with me from this experience are human relationships, Kyrgyz are smiling people, open to helping you and sharing their culture. I also found some parallelism between Kyrgyz and Italians (at least people from Bishkek), they have the same behaviour on the streets, they honk, they get angry, and they have their own rules. B' art contemporary organised a nomadic art camp from 2011 till 2019, my volunteer job was to organise it for 2021 but in the end, it wasn't possible because of the pandemic situation. The plan b was to do a series of workshops between expat artists in Bishkek and local artists, with an exhibition at the end of them. The time was not enough to fully concretise thi...

 Сокулук On Sunday I'll travel to Budapest, so this is my last week and my last diary from Kyrgyzstan. These two months were very intense, and they literally fly between amazing people, wonderful landscapes and discovering a new culture. I think that what I will bring with me from this experience are human relationships, here I found smiling people, open to helping you and sharing their culture. I also found some parallelism between Kyrgyz and Italians (at least people from Bishkek), they have the same behave on the streets, they honk, they get angry, they have their own rules.  For the last week, in the flat, we decided to share traditional food: Italian, Kyrgyz and Vietnamese (I have a flatmate from there). As you can see, I prepared pizza, and the family that hosts me prepared Manti (манты), from the Vietnamese part it will be a surprise. On Sunday I did my last hike, a friend invited me to an organised one in the Sokuluk region not far from Bishkek. We saw three different ...

Ала Арча For my personal urban photo project, I visited two different abandoned places: a hotel in Bishkek and the Ak Tuz village. I did a walking tour to the ruins of ancient cities on the silk road and had a hike in the Ala Archa nation park. About my volunteer work, I found a video maker that will help us with a promotional video, we had a nice meeting about the two projects and the exhibition probably will be on my last week in Kyrgyzstan. We are trying to build up a vision that goes after my staying here. Like in which way to use the dacha and how to promote it, I took some pictures in the way to do it. There we had a nice meeting/dinner with other volunteers/friends and we planned how should be the charity exhibition, basically, we need only a date. This dacha is really a peaceful place, just outside the city but far from the noise, pollution and chaos of Bishkek. There you can enjoy the fresh air and the sound of the creek. I think it could be a nice place for a lot of different...

Кель-Суу This week was probably the one that I enjoyed the most until now, but also realize that time is running and I have a few weeks before to leave. That means that I have to plan what to visit and what to do in my free time and work hard to reach our goals. We want to use my coordinator's studio for the charity exhibition, so during this week we set up the place for it and took pro pictures of paints and sculptures that can take part in the event. Also this week people will come to check the place and give us some feedback. We are continuing the brainstorming about the art therapy events, our first goal is to start the advertisement as soon as possible. I visited a magical place near the border with China, a lake at 3500 m altitude. I left the city on Friday evening, travelled all night and reached the camp for breakfast. The all-night in a bus was a small sacrifice comparing the experience I have done in Kel Suu.    I have to say that I felt the altitude during the 7 km ...