A minimal change to a normal element of road signage was enough to ignite the summer controversy over the management of tourist flows in the Alpine valleys. It all started from the idea of the Milanese urban artist Biancoshock who installed a temporary sticker on the signs indicating the road curves between the provinces of Bolzano and Belluno, transforming the indication “Tornante” into the imperative “Tornatene” (home).
The intervention, conceived as an incursion of transitory public art so as not to obstruct traffic, aims to symbolically give voice to the Dolomites, a fragile ecosystem exhausted by excessive anthropic pressure. The artist made it clear that he did not want to promote the expulsion of visitors nor to attack those who travel, but that he wanted to highlight the drift by which the territory is transformed into a mere consumer product to be squeezed.
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The social divide between environmental defenders and the local economy
The diffusion of images of the work on digital channels sparked an immediate split in public opinion, polarizing the discussion between opposing positions. On the one hand there are those who welcomed the provocation as a necessary denunciation against congested roads, exhausted parking spaces and overcrowded alpine paths; on the other hand, there was strong criticism from those who recalled how the local economy of hotels, restaurants and ski lifts depends vitally on the influx of visitors. Biancoshock underlined that he had foreseen the adverse reactions and insults received online, explaining that the intent of the work is to raise critical questions about the carrying capacity of infrastructures and the mountain environment, suggesting the rediscovery of less traveled valleys as an alternative.
An artist who has been active in this sense for 20 years
The work carried out on the Dolomite valleys is fully within the stylistic code of the artist, who has been active in public spaces for over twenty years to solicit the occasional passer-by through the re-signification of already codified visual languages. This technique of symbolic deviation, applied to road signs to analyze the contradictions of contemporary society, will be at the center of the finissage of the exhibition “Human theatre, theater of nature” at the C21 space in Reggio Emilia, which sees Biancoshock exhibit alongside Francesco Garbelli and the collective Dott. Porka’s. The “Tornatene” installation thus confirms itself as a provocation capable of forcing the public to stop in front of a single word to question the future of coexistence between environmental protection and economic development.
