CONTRABAND | Team4

CONTRABAND is a project developed within the "Riabitare le Alpi" Atelier. The team was assigned the number 4, hence the title TEAM4.

It consists of a network of mountain routes that go back to the routes of smugglers moving between Italy and France.

The information on smuggling in Valle Stura comes mainly from the direct testimonies of those who lived those experiences on their own skin. The video "La Couòntrobando, un mestíer per viure", shot in 2013 thanks to the contribution of local authorities, in which those who were the smugglers, and also an ex-financier, told facts and anecdotes was of fundamental importance for the investigation of their life.

We must understand the border not as a limit but as an area in which battles and trade take place.

For the purpose of the project, some analyzes were carried out along the paths traced:

- sun exposure: in order to evaluate the possibility of using a route for the longest time during the year

- soil slope: to evaluate the difficulty of the route

- unstable areas: to assess the presence of dangers along the paths

The altimetric trends of each path have been obtained through the re-elaboration of the geographic datasets. This allowed us to identify the type of user and most suitable activities for each track.

For each path, a story related to a specific character dictated by the narratives of the ex-smugglers from the valley was proposed.

It was decided to place a series of installations along the paths, paying attention to the panoramic view of the point, the slope and the exposure. The works, of which some examples have been reported, recall in some cases the facts that actually happened, while in others they report the smuggler's tools. For their realization, materials resistant to the particularly difficult conditions of the place have been designed, so that they do not require maintenance during their life cycle.