I’ve always thought that if you stay long enough in a place, you start observing stories; pieces come together like a puzzle. I realized that this is a main characteristic of all public spaces. They are all heavy with personal stories, some of them in embryonic phase, other close to the end.

So this is an essay on the stories a public space can bring to light and it starts with the Museumsquartier, in Wien. The first part was about the kids that carelessly and uncaringly hang around the museums; this part goes about some temporary guests in the Museumsquartier.

As I was sitting on a bench, I noticed an inflation of some well-organized pink t-shirts; some random Chinese tourists, I thought at first. What was weird about these tourists is that new groups of pink t-shirts kept showing up and they all seemed a bit lost, but enthusiastically happy. I followed them and this is how I got in the backstages of Tanzquartier, a place inside the Museumquartier, destined for dance shows. The tourists proved to be groups of dancers from the huge territory of China and in a few hours they were having a show.

As I watched them rehearsing, I was amazed by their incredible discrete moves and powerful costumes. However, at some point I managed to get in the dressing rooms and there was a whole different world. The dancers were lying tired on the floor, putting make up and unwilling to be photographed. They closed the doors so I didn’t take any more photos.

Outside, a group kept practicing. It was made up of women over 60, tired and yet graceful. These ones didn’t mind the pictures. I thought it’s because they had their costumes on. What those in the dressing rooms disliked were not the pictures, but the idea of being photographed not with a glowing, beautiful costume, but with weary faces and normal clothes.

One of the dancers invited me to eat with them. So there I was, eating rice with a bunch of old Chinese dancers, smiling to each other, and not being able to exchange a word. 

The show started at 7.30. After traveling thousands of km, each group had about 15 minutes at disposal to show their history of dance.

While watching the dances I couldn’t stop thinking about the real life of these women in China.

One of them gave me the address of her daughter in Beijing, in order for me to send her the pictures and have a place to stay over, in case I would visit their country. The daughter never answered the email..

Tango

There is nothing peculiar about a young girl sitting alone at a table and drinking a coffee. It is a different story when you walk in a small city cafe on a rainy day and you see a 50-years old woman, with a rather shy look, wearing a black silk dress and drinking her coffee.

A young boy on the metro, carrying a huge teddy bear in his arms, an elegantly dressed man, walking a bit absent through the Museumsquartier in Vienna and eating an apple, a lonely woman in a café, they are people you randomly meet and  take one photograph of them, but you don't ask further questions because the context is not always proper. They are the strangers who tell their stories with a single glance.

Right next to the Museumquartier in Wien, a 60 000m2 cultural area, containing museums, Baroque buildings and fancy terraces with healthy food, some kids were hanging out. They were listening to System of a Down, fighting, combing hair, talking loud, smoking water pipe, but especially making out. As I was too shy to talk to them in German and they were shy to address me in English, we didn’t share many words. However, when two security guards showed up, they were nice enough to explain me that they had to move some meters away, because they were too close to a museum’s walls. Some of them told me their names, Luca, Nico, Nadine, Mimi, but most were quite reluctant about it. 

Two boys I met on the streets of Brasov, both of them studying music. The taller boy seemed  pretty self-confident and relaxed in front of the camera, while the other one looked like he was hiding in his big grey jacket and unconsciously making a statement on shyness.Even though shyness is most often regarded as a barrier to actively interacting with the world,  I also see it as something precious because it makes you turn your attention from your own person to the world and look more carefully at it.