Still from Sussuri dell'acqua
Still from Sussuri dell'acqua
The Sussuri dell'acqua (Whispers of Water ) is an experimental and reflective video that documents the public and participatory artwork Come se fossimo nuovi (As If We Were New), by artist Gianni Moretti and psychotherapist Chiara Ronconi. The work, created for the Festival della Peste in Milan in 2023, unfolds across two interconnected public events held at the fountain on Via Benedetto Marcello.
Drawing on the themes of loss and absence, the two artists invited passersby to leave a vocal testimony, collecting a ceramic tear from the fountain, as if a memory, once narrated and given sound, could materialise into a personal object. In a subsequent phase, these narrative voices were processed together with the environmental sounds recorded on site, then distributed and amplified in the same space, while preserving the intimacy of their content.
The documentation work was carried out within the framework of the PNRR-CHANGES project Sound Mapping of the City of Milan, conducted by the LEAV Laboratory at the University of Milano, of which I am a member. After an emotionally immersive experience participating in both events, and following interviews with the two artists and the work's collaborators, I made Sussuri dell'acqua to reflect on the transformative journey of memory: from something shapeless and silent, it becomes a rigid object that nonetheless represents our fragility; that tangible object then dissolves into the space alongside the water of the fountain, through the amplification of the narrative voices.
As in a cycle, the weight of memory "descends" and "rises", lightened and shared. Its density softens, taking form in a series of blue cushions made by the two artists, that receive the body in moments of need.
This video also arises from a desire to dedicate a memory to a work that made me feel cared for. At the same time, it reflects on the blurred boundaries between ethnographic practice and artistic practice.
The Sussuri dell'acqua was screened during Gianni Moretti's personal exhibition Simile a un riverbero at Palazzo della Penna, Perugia, January–February 2026. Photo: Benedetta Manzi
