What attracts me to this place is the tranquillity, a sense of peace that stems from a combination of things: the sound of the water drowning out that of my thoughts, the impression of being cut off from everything else while still being close to home, the chance to be alone but also to meet someone.

Access is on foot, the few cars that pass belong to residents. The boundaries between public and private are porous: they are thresholds, edges, margins rather than borders because they are immaterial, except for the odd sign. They are boundaries that are somewhat subjective, cultural, emotional.

The porosity of the boundaries compels the inhabitants to strongly emphasise their private property. Walking here with a keen eye, one finds little traces of those who have passed before.

The spatial contrast renders visible the temporal contrast. There is the slow time of the earth, of the paths, of the park. There is the fast time of the motorway, of the industrial estate. And for each time there are actions that outline the space. To dwell, to care for, to traverse. To produce, to pass by, to leave. The canal marks the boundary between two different rhythms.

My gaze wanders freely until it encounters the motorway baricades, which draw it upward. The murmur of water flowing slowly, the chirping of birds from the treetops, the rustling of leaves, my footsteps on the dirt road, but also the engine of a tractor, the metallic buzz of the factories and the noise of the motorway. In my mouth, the taste of dust. In my nose, the scent of freshly cut grass, of flowers and exhaust fumes. On my skin, a moist sensation and the fresh air caressing it.

What characterises this place is not the individual elements but the overall ensemble. The hammer mill, the houses, the factories in the industrial estate, the green spaces, both public and private, and the anti-noise barriers of the Pedemontana motorway.

There are spaces that have been designed for people to congregate, such as the Baden Powell park or certain benches, and then there are informal meeting points, the places where people meet spontaneously and stop to talk: riverbanks, narrow streets, footpaths.

This is a transient place where those who pass by don't seem to leave any traces. At least, not material ones. If you look for them, there are some traces, imprinted in the memory of those who have been here many times: they are sensations; scenes that one reconstructs as fantasies that inhabit the empty space like ghosts of what once was.

Visible but not exposed, protected, intimate, discreet. Insofar as a small town space can be, where everyone knows everyone.

It lies motionless and almost hidden, with its square shapes and ancient simplicity, a wash house that catapults me into a past that I did not experience, but that I have been told about so many times.

Bricks, river stones, concrete and asphalt: that small arch which supports the road while water flows by beneath seems to encapsulate the entire technological evolution.

The canal has shaped the landscape it flows through: it has irrigated the fields, powered the first proto-industrial systems and made daily life possible, allowing people to live and work in this area. Today it is a silent presence, seemingly superfluous, but this place would be completely different if it were not there.