Marcello Moscara's 200km Pilgrimage Along the Via Francigena Documented in Photo Exhibition

Marcello Moscara (Galatina, 1972) conceived a 200-kilometer performative journey along the final stretch of the Via Francigena to Santa Maria di Leuca, walking with a donkey and a group of multidisciplinary artists. The project, realized in 2021 after the pandemic, is documented in a 2023 photobook and now in the exhibition "Asini Dotti. In cammino lungo la Via Francigena" at Fondazione Pino Pascali in Polignano a Mare. Curated by Carmelo Cipriani, the show features 50 photographs accompanied by texts from critic Roberto Mutti and writer Raffaele Gorgoni, plus a site-specific installation exploring the symbolic figure of the donkey in art, philosophy, and literature. Moscara's research on "asinità" draws on sources including an Euclidean theorem and anthropologist Marius Schneider's study linking the donkey's bray to the concept of reversible passage between dimensions. The journey started at Torre Guaceto near Brindisi and ended at Santa Maria di Leuca, covering nearly 200 km in ten days without returning home. Moscara acknowledges unconscious influences from Ernesto De Martino and Franco Pinna's 1950s reportages in Puglia, as well as his university mentor Cresci's anthropological research.