{"id":8986,"date":"2026-01-17T13:53:24","date_gmt":"2026-01-17T13:53:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/?page_id=8986"},"modified":"2026-02-04T12:35:02","modified_gmt":"2026-02-04T12:35:02","slug":"carla-women-words-stories-and-a-colorful-surprise","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/?page_id=8986","title":{"rendered":"Women, words, stories and a colorful surprise"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/?page_id=8878\">Theme <span style=\"font-size: 10pt;\">Table<\/span> of <span style=\"font-size: 10pt;\">Contents<\/span><\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/vjic.org\"><span style=\"font-size: 10pt;\">VJIC Table of Contents<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"font-size: 10pt;\"><a id=\"top\"><\/a>second essay in theme series<\/span><\/p>\n<div style=\"padding: 56.25% 0 0 0; position: relative;\"><iframe style=\"position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%;\" title=\"carla-vasa2-intro\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/1155506383?badge=0&amp;autopause=0&amp;player_id=0&amp;app_id=58479\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>I\u2019ve always had a good ability to listen, and to tell stories. Around 2017 I allowed myself to start writing them, drawing inspiration from what I had seen and heard. And that\u2019s how <em>Herstories<\/em> was born: short stories of women I had met, some written in Italian, others in English. On one side I had the stories, on the other the images. The first task was to select the two components and combine them so they could enrich each other, prompting questions and answers.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-9035\" src=\"https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/carla-vasa2-herstories1-cover-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/carla-vasa2-herstories1-cover-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/carla-vasa2-herstories1-cover-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/carla-vasa2-herstories1-cover-150x113.jpg 150w, https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/carla-vasa2-herstories1-cover-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/carla-vasa2-herstories1-cover-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/carla-vasa2-herstories1-cover.jpg 1600w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/>I had a few rules: every place and detail in the photographs clearly suggested human presence, yet among them all there is only one image where a living person can be glimpsed\u2014a tiny silhouette behind a window. I alternated Italian and English, I, You, and She; when a story moved me too much, I wrote it in English and in the third person, to create some distance between the event and its telling. (There aren\u2019t many artists like Nan Goldin, capable of photographing their own lives without filters. Cindy Sherman has always disguised herself to avoid revealing herself.) When I decided to turn it into a book, I chose to translate the texts into the other language. While working, I realized it was more interesting and more fun to create non-literal translations. Here is an example, with the Italian actual translation and my more personal one:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-9033 \" src=\"https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/carla-vasa2-herstories-cava-788x1024.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"628\" height=\"816\" srcset=\"https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/carla-vasa2-herstories-cava-788x1024.jpeg 788w, https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/carla-vasa2-herstories-cava-231x300.jpeg 231w, https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/carla-vasa2-herstories-cava-115x150.jpeg 115w, https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/carla-vasa2-herstories-cava-768x998.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/carla-vasa2-herstories-cava.jpeg 1151w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 628px) 100vw, 628px\" \/><span style=\"font-size: 10pt;\">It had gone well for you when those three offered you a ride. They drove in silence, under the rain, you in the back, all the way to a deserted quarry. You were saved by your innocence\u2014the thin little voice with which you asked Where are we going? Then they realized they had misunderstood and brought you back intact to the village, to the only hotel open in the off-season.<br \/>\n<\/span><span style=\"font-size: 10pt;\">You were far away from home and quite lost. You asked for some information. You felt very lucky when those three gave you a lift, promising they were going to drive you there. Their car went under the driving rain, nobody speaking, to a deserted quarry.<br \/>\n<\/span><span style=\"font-size: 10pt;\">You were saved by your innocence, the small voice when you said Where are we going? Then they knew they had misunderstood and brought you back to the small town they had just left, to the only hotel open in the dead season.<br \/>\n<\/span><span style=\"font-size: 10pt;\">Thinking back to that night, after so many years, you still heave a sigh of relief. You were very lucky indeed. (You have always been quite lucky, actually. Every big risk you na\u00efvely and trustingly took in your life was reduced to just a big scare, a memento, never becoming the deadly accident it could have been. After all, you prefer trust and optimism to diffidence and fear.)<\/span><\/p>\n<p>I have always enjoyed playing with words. The title of the project, which has been exhibited in Italy and abroad, is the plural of <em>herstory<\/em>, a term coined by American feminists (first known use, 1962). They played on the pronouns <em>her\u2013his <\/em>to challenge History as a list of events made by men: <em>his<\/em><em>-tory<\/em>. They wanted to include women\u2014and not only queens or abbesses\u2014in historical events. Since 1947, French scholars at the <em>\u00c9cole des hautes \u00e9tudes en sciences sociales<\/em> (EHESS) had begun collecting and analyzing data and information about the lives of ordinary people, so that their story could be told as well. Some dug into the account books of the Duke of Burgundy to learn the basic diet of the time (the family had to be fed every day, but also the stable-hands and laundresses, not to mention hosting guests and their retinues with proper dignity); others told the history of water and fountains in Paris, where the women of the city queued every day with their buckets and pitchers. And yet women\u2019s roles continued to be invisible in the one History taught in schools. Artists of the past were \u201cvery good, for being women,\u201d wrote Germaine Greer and other feminists in their histories of art. For poets and writers, recognition arrived somewhat earlier\u2014but by decades, not by centuries (it\u2019s no coincidence that Jane Austen signed with a male name). And as Siri Hustvedt brilliantly argues in <em>The Delusions of Certainty<\/em>, science, medicine, and law claim to be objective, yet rest on a millennia-old tradition in which <em>male is the default<\/em>.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_9085\" style=\"width: 650px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-9085\" class=\"wp-image-9085 size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/WhatsApp-Image-2026-01-19-at-14.57.18-1024x507.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"317\" srcset=\"https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/WhatsApp-Image-2026-01-19-at-14.57.18-1024x507.jpeg 1024w, https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/WhatsApp-Image-2026-01-19-at-14.57.18-300x149.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/WhatsApp-Image-2026-01-19-at-14.57.18-150x74.jpeg 150w, https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/WhatsApp-Image-2026-01-19-at-14.57.18-768x380.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/WhatsApp-Image-2026-01-19-at-14.57.18.jpeg 1280w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-9085\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sally Mann &#8211; Moira Ricci<\/p><\/div>\n<p>In photography and books, I find women such as Silvia Camporesi, who after years of photographing monuments and landscapes decided to portray rescue teams covered in the mud of a flood. There is Sally Mann\u2019s memoir <em>Hold Still<\/em>, with the story and photographs of her family: wonderful to read and to look at. There are Moira Ricci\u2019s photomontages, where she inserts herself\u2014without AI\u2014into family photos in which her young mother is working or watering plants. I speak only of moments, of emotions, and I combine them with images without people. Here is what Cristina Viti, poet and translator of poets, writes in the introduction:<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 10pt;\"><em>Con Piacere<\/em> (With pleasure<em>): <\/em>200 words on Carla Della Beffa\u2019s <em>Herstories<\/em>\u00a0 <\/span><em><span style=\"font-size: 10pt;\">\u00a0<\/span><br \/>\n<\/em><span style=\"font-size: 10pt;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-9034\" src=\"https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/carla-vasa2-herstories-user-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/carla-vasa2-herstories-user-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/carla-vasa2-herstories-user-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/carla-vasa2-herstories-user-150x113.jpg 150w, https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/carla-vasa2-herstories-user-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/carla-vasa2-herstories-user-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/carla-vasa2-herstories-user-2048x1536.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/>art: work: vital tension: dynamic interaction of opposites: energy created &amp; circulated by a disciplined refusal of resolution: poised balance: razor-sharp observation, crystal-clear images: warmth, amity against generic &amp; ultimately stereotyping solidarity: relating: seeing deeply &amp; touching tenderly: non-judgment, a militancy of the image: freedom hard won &amp; elegantly carried: colours, a long &amp; intimate relationship with colour: machines as prompts for a critical reflection on systems: grace under fire: pure <em>joie de vivre,<\/em> laughter, dance,<em> \u00e9lan<\/em>: fashion as play, taste as praxis: understatement as a focusing<\/span> <span style=\"font-size: 10pt;\">evice for human kindness against emotional self-indulgence: travel, openness to risk &amp; surprise: cities, their glamour, their miseries: economies of image &amp; self-image: myth &amp; fairy tale revisited with humour: skill, technique, the love of things done well: the detail as keystone: memory as lucidity wrestling with nostalgia: the world &amp; the neighbourhood: the body &amp; the family: the body &amp; the workplace: the body &amp; its transience, its freedoms &amp; fragilities: the shutter\u2019s split second: \u2018foreign language\u2019 with no pretension: \u2018mother language\u2019 with the ease of daily conversation: language observed: consciousness raising &amp; urban acceleration: complacent assumptions whether one\u2019s own or others\u2019 relentlessl<\/span>y <span style=\"font-size: 10pt;\">challenged: there is so much more\u2026 go find out.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Over the years, I have dealt with economics, society, and relationships. I inserted words and marks into photos, to explain myself better, and because my images didn\u2019t seem enough. With <em>Herstories<\/em> I finally acknowledged that words had a role equal to images. Perhaps tomorrow I will no longer need them, or only for certain stories\u2014like that of a toy factory to which I dedicated a ten-copy book, <em>Gita alla Faro<\/em>. The truth is that I like words so much, and I can\u2019t do without them.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_9084\" style=\"width: 650px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-9084\" class=\"wp-image-9084 size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/WhatsApp-Image-2026-01-19-at-14.57.55-1024x492.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"308\" srcset=\"https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/WhatsApp-Image-2026-01-19-at-14.57.55-1024x492.jpeg 1024w, https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/WhatsApp-Image-2026-01-19-at-14.57.55-300x144.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/WhatsApp-Image-2026-01-19-at-14.57.55-150x72.jpeg 150w, https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/WhatsApp-Image-2026-01-19-at-14.57.55-768x369.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/WhatsApp-Image-2026-01-19-at-14.57.55.jpeg 1250w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-9084\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Gita alla Faro &#8211; Se dico rosso<\/p><\/div>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-9042\" src=\"https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/carla-vasa2-se-dico-rosso.cover_-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/carla-vasa2-se-dico-rosso.cover_-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/carla-vasa2-se-dico-rosso.cover_-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/carla-vasa2-se-dico-rosso.cover_-150x113.jpg 150w, https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/carla-vasa2-se-dico-rosso.cover_-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/carla-vasa2-se-dico-rosso.cover_-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/carla-vasa2-se-dico-rosso.cover_-2048x1536.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/>And now there is a surprise I hadn\u2019t foreseen when planning this installment: <em>Se dico rosso<\/em> (BookTime\u2013La Vita Felice, Milan 2023). It is an essay on colors and on the words we use to define them. It is a rainbow of ideas and hues, with many words and quite a few photographs, and the title is borrowed from a lesson by Josef Albers on color and perception. The cover says:<\/p>\n<p><em>Se dico rosso<\/em> is an investigation into the words of colors, an enormous puzzle impossible to solve, so rich is it in clues and points of view. Chemistry, codes, pigments, the physical causes of color, the workings of light and perception, catalogue names and metaphors, art history, criticism, morality, <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-9040\" src=\"https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/carla-vasa2-se-dico-rosso-page-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/carla-vasa2-se-dico-rosso-page-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/carla-vasa2-se-dico-rosso-page-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/carla-vasa2-se-dico-rosso-page-150x113.jpg 150w, https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/carla-vasa2-se-dico-rosso-page-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/carla-vasa2-se-dico-rosso-page-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/carla-vasa2-se-dico-rosso-page.jpg 2000w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/>literature,songs. Words and colors touch everything and everyone, from art to architecture, from candies to nail polish, from fashion to industry. In Italian, English, and French the names of hues change, and their symbolic value differs in every culture. Interpreter, witness, detective, Carla Della Beffa has spent years digging into the theme of color and its languages to gather data and arguments, then stitching together words and photographs, comments and translations, like a patchwork. Infinite and necessarily incomplete, because it is vision that gives color to things: colors exist only if there are eyes to see them. And what we see is subjective: even facing the same shade, each of us sees our own red.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-9083 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/WhatsApp-Image-2026-01-19-at-14.58.19.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"950\" height=\"349\" srcset=\"https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/WhatsApp-Image-2026-01-19-at-14.58.19.jpeg 950w, https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/WhatsApp-Image-2026-01-19-at-14.58.19-300x110.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/WhatsApp-Image-2026-01-19-at-14.58.19-150x55.jpeg 150w, https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/WhatsApp-Image-2026-01-19-at-14.58.19-768x282.jpeg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 950px) 100vw, 950px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-9082\" src=\"https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/WhatsApp-Image-2026-01-19-at-14.58.49.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"950\" height=\"349\" srcset=\"https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/WhatsApp-Image-2026-01-19-at-14.58.49.jpeg 950w, https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/WhatsApp-Image-2026-01-19-at-14.58.49-300x110.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/WhatsApp-Image-2026-01-19-at-14.58.49-150x55.jpeg 150w, https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/WhatsApp-Image-2026-01-19-at-14.58.49-768x282.jpeg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 950px) 100vw, 950px\" \/>The next installment will be an interview with two artists\u2014two men full of initiative who make books and much more\u2014and I will start from one of their almost-wordless photo-books.<\/p>\n<div style=\"padding: 56.25% 0 0 0; position: relative;\"><iframe style=\"position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%;\" title=\"carla-vasa2-pres-vasa3\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/1155506185?badge=0&amp;autopause=0&amp;player_id=0&amp;app_id=58479\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#top\">go to top\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Theme Table of Contents VJIC Table of Contents second essay in theme series I\u2019ve always had a good ability to listen, and to tell stories. Around 2017 I allowed myself to start writing them, drawing inspiration from what I had &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/?page_id=8986\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":88910,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-8986","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/P2KsSU-2kW","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/8986","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/88910"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8986"}],"version-history":[{"count":38,"href":"https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/8986\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9095,"href":"https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/8986\/revisions\/9095"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vjic.org\/vjic2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}