Ioannis Savvidis

Τhe Embarrassment of the Tourist

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The performance took place right in the heart of the city’s historic center at the Maria Tereza Square in Turin, right in front of the sculpture of General Guglielmo
Pepe, I give a speech standing on a scaffold which rises to the same level as the sculpture. While there I read out a text to the public, in Italian;

a language I don‘t speak (as I had originally written the text in German).

Upon receiving a copy of the translation of the text in Italian, I was trained to pronounce it correctly, but not to understand any of the words I was speaking out. The text was about the feelings of unease and embarrassment I had experienced on an earlier visit to that same city.

I had been made to feel like a tou- rist, whereas I had come as a visitor:

I found that I was involuntarily taking part in the realization of a city preconceived so that it would appeal to the touristic gaze. The only means though which I could retain both mine as well as the city’s otherness,

would be to place myself among the city’s sculptures in order to gain

a differentiated perspective.