N.108 - O’ vascio

Before being a home, a vascio is an idea of the city and of the relationships between its inhabitants. A ground-floor dwelling, often consisting of just a single room, where every centimetre is optimised and the door is the only real opening onto the outside world. The pavement becomes a living room, the threshold a stage: those who live inside and those who pass by on the streets are both actors and spectators. It is no wonder, then, that literature and theatre have never stopped looking inside. Boccaccio left some of the earliest traces, Matilde Serao made it a symbol of a Naples in need of renewal, and Viviani and Eduardo De Filippo brought it to the stage. Ever since, the vascio has become part of the collective imagination. In the vascio, community is built into the very structure. Neighbours greet one another every day, and votive shrines, habits, and rituals are shared and preserved together. It is how Naples has always made a home out of the space it had: by drawing closer together. Isa Sgariglia’s Cover No. 108 captures it at its finest hour, as the setting sun illuminates the building’s façade and three women sit just outside, on the street. A conversation that has been going on for centuries.