Francesca Petrarca – No grazie, non fumo

Description

“Thanks to my nonna, I learned early on that people don’t really die in films and that the blood that appears in them isn’t real blood, but ketchup. Even today, when I see bloody film scenes, I think about how sticky it must be on film sets. And when I think of ketchup, I imagine my young grandfather sometimes cooking his children spaghetti al ketchup for pranzo because my nonna was still at work.”

Francesca Petrarca talks about her nonna, who immigrated to Switzerland alone from Italy in the 1950s. She talks about how her grandparents later built a life together in Winterthur and how they moved to Rimini when they retired. She talks about what is left behind now that her nonni are gone and how objects, anecdotes and cooking lasagne make up for the loss. Memories pile up like the layers of a creamy lasagne, stories as colourful as Rimini’s bygone days, with a hint of Italian when the nonna had something to counter.

Historian Flavia Grossmann complements this literary portrait with historical contributions, describing the complexity of Swiss migration policy with clarity.

Studio nonsai, Francesca Petrarca
Francesca Petrarca (*1988) was born and grew up in Winterthur. She always spent her summer holidays with her grandparents in Rimini, who moved back to Italy after retiring from Winterthur. She studied art history, media studies, visual communication and image research in Basel. She works as a freelance book designer. Every now and then she is overcome by a longing for her nonna and has no choice but to cook lasagne again.
www.nonsai.ch