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Manifesto "The poet is of no party." Baudelaire
Our manifesto is an act of substantiation.
We reject all forms of futilitarianism, in whatever disguise.
We believe that comedy is the song of the village and tragedy the song of the goat.
We believe what is written in the books, but now we want to see for ourselves.
The single idea, beating on the same doors in vain.
The analogue and the invention.
The death cell.
The first permission.
Though we watch the stage for things to happen, though our minds wander.
By ourselves in the green field, playing our diversion.
Though the story begins with the loss of a home.
Out of the machine, we shift restlessly in our seats.
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Harp & Altar

Issue: ELEVEN, WINTER 2022
13 | 12 | 11 | ARCHIVE: 1–10
{ Manifesto }
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Double Sun

Jon Pack



I think about light a lot. Even as a kid, I’d fiddle with the lighting in our computer room, insisting to my bewildered brother that I couldn’t join him in whatever game we were playing until the overhead was switched off and the lamps were turned on. It’s the first thing I notice in a space, in a photograph, in a film. I can’t remember how I first heard about Viganella, a small village in northern Italy that receives no direct sunlight for 83 days every winter, but I was instantly fascinated by the story—and by the town’s solution. In 2006, the villagers installed an enormous mirror in the mountains above them that tracks the sun’s movements, reflecting light into the main piazza during those otherwise unilluminated days. They call it soledoppio, their double sun.

When I visited Viganella in 2014, the mirror was broken, stuck in a position that reflected sun not on the piazza but instead on the roof of the mayor’s house and a few side streets. In the absence of light, it took 24 hours for me to start feeling sad; after 48, I was nearly inconsolable. I stayed in a hotel with no other guests; I was literally by myself. The owner Ornella would prepare me a feast—passatelli in brodo and straccetti di pollo agli agrumi one evening, saccottini al ragu bolognese and carpaccio di carciofi con parmigiano reggiano e noci another—and then drive home to Milan for the night.

Snow and clouds kept everyone inside for the first few days of my visit. When the weather cleared, I ventured out and met some of the town’s residents: Mayor Pierfranco Midali and engineer Giacomo Bonzani, who conceived of and designed the soledoppio together; a young woman named Erica and her dog Easy; a man named Mario who warned me about the town’s ghosts and another named Sergio who was hurrying to see the visiting doctor. Taking advantage of the reflected light, people strolled through the streets, catching up with neighbors, making shadow puppets on the walls. I read some time later that the mirror had since been repaired and once again brightens the piazza from November to February. I hope I can get back to Viganella to see it.

—Jon Pack


All images: untitled, digital c-prints, 2014.