Valentina de Bartolo Official Fuorisalone.it e.Reporter

Ever since I was a child, I have always felt almost obsessed with what lay beyond a threshold, that evanescent film that kept me from touching the real world. Wherever I went, images of the city would quickly parade before my irises and I would try to stretch out my fingers to grab them, piling them up in the archive of my memory. Hence the passion for photography, coming from the need to tangibly capture what I have always observed with extreme curiosity. 
And again, the passion for the red velvet armchairs of the Manzoni Theatre, the scent of the salt of the books read by the sea, they have been with me in daily escapes during all these years, living parallel scenarios.

The love for architecture and design also arose from my untamable creativity. My mother is unconsciously responsible for this, when she used to drag me to Cassina (she still does) to help her choose new furniture for the living room. Suddenly, I wanted to help build those images of home, of city, not just to be a passive spectator. What does an architect do, if not design a space by imagining the lives of others?

The Fuorisalone is an emblem of how it is possible to 'be at home everywhere', inhabiting the city of Milan - my adopted home for the past five years - every year in a new way.