Saluti & Baci - Graphic Days
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SALUTI & BACI
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moreSaluti & Baci (Travel Agency for a New World) is a fictional travel agency that addresses socio environmental issues. Flipping the logic of the classic travel image, which sets out to capture the best of a place, Saluti & Baci highlights harmful human interference and extreme natural events.
Blue seas, palm trees, eternal cities, skies that are always clear.
Travel agencies used to sell a very specific idea of the world. The postcard was their business card: a small rectangle of paper saying:
I'm here, it's beautiful, wish you were too
Sixty years later, the same destinations make headlines for other reasons. California burns every summer. Venice sinks. In the Pacific floats a seventh continent of plastic, roughly three times the size of France.
Saluti & Baci was born from this friction: mid-century iconography for late-stage problems.Postcards From the Pale Blue Dot, 2020-
Somewhere between graphic journalism and mail art, the Postcard Collection is a series of illustrated postcards on critical climate-related topics: ecological disasters, socio-environmental issues and climate crisis denial. New postcards are released periodically in response to current events.
The Weight of Air, 2023–
An installation designed as a pop-up travel agency.
I would sit inside, ready to welcome travellers from the audience, who can approach the desk and ask for a trip to any destination in the world. Working quickly in black ink on brightly coloured paper, I draw a unique postcard for each of them.
The postcard is handed over together with a boarding pass showing the destination, date, time, ticket number and the real-time pollution level at that location.
The colour of the paper corresponds to the pollution level of the chosen place, giving an immediate visual reading of air quality around the world.
The finished drawings are displayed on the structure, which gradually becomes a colourful map of global destinations and their pollution levels. The boarding pass, signed and numbered, stays with the visitor as a keepsake of their imaginary journey.
Inside the structure, visitors can find detailed information about air pollution and the methods used to measure it.
The whole installation is built from recycled or upcycled materials, and the drawings are made with black ink produced from real pollution emissions.
Performers:
Daniele Catalli, Eleonora Diana
Set Decorator and installation:
Daniele Catalli
In collaboration with Marche Teatro (IT), Collectief Walden (NL), ProProgressione (HU)
Shown at:
Inteatro Festival, Ancona, 2024 (debut)
Adiacenze, Bologna, 2026
Graphic Days, Torino, 2026