Hall – Luca Coclite

The video work, which takes the form of a multimedia video installation, tells three stories that have crossed from 1960 to the present day a symbolic place in the history of the Salento area: the former Regina Pacis temporary residence centre in San Foca, a seaside resort in the municipality of Melendugno.

Originally used as a summer colony for children, the structure was transformed from 1998 to 2006 into the largest Italian c.p.t., ended up in the storm of many judicial scandals for the violence suffered by refugees. Today it is an abandoned eco-monster that is preparing to become a five-star resort.

A contradictory place of passage and border, like Salento, it has experienced a profound metamorphosis marked by three different moments of its history: the era of tradition and popular dimension (now lost), the years of immigration (from the Balkans and North Africa) and the era of mass tourism. In continuous transformation according to the function entrusted to it by the present, in its concreteness, it remains indifferent to the destinies of those who live there. In the multimedia display the three different realities touch the border of the screen without interruption and dialogue with the viewer in an immersive way.

The work is an invitation to reflect on the theme of reception, expressed in its different meanings: tourist reception on the one hand, the result of the relations – most often fictitious – of the tourist with the entire local system, the system of reception of migrants in the territory on the other.