Someone of us, Volpi Scapigliate, used to hang out with Andy Rocchelli when he was a young guy, but then losing track of each other while growing up, as sometimes happen. In our memory he was a cheerful and smiling guy. Then after that cursed day 6 years ago, we learnt about the astonishing depth of his work as an adult.
It has been a suffering path, but it has also been a discovery experience. We started with the intention of finding the truth and the justice for a friend, but we happened to find ourselves taking notes and learn about journalism, professionalism and life from a character that left us with much more than what we could imagine.
Andrea has taught us that values as human rights and freedom are not abstract ideals, but can be concrete goals when looked at them through stories and their characters, like the Sloviansk’s children in their bunker. Andy reminds us that for telling those stories and for creating our own stories, there are not shortcuts: hard work, zero compromises and an extremely high price to pay sometimes. He united us around a universe of stories and hopes in the possibility to do our little piece for shaping a better world.
An year ago now we were finalizing the “Da Barriere a Ponti” project, a venture that showed once more who Andy Rocchelli was and who we want to be as Volpi Scapigliate. Somebody that can inspire a bunch of teenager, millannials that are used to spend their days watching their mobiles, to study instead for months Andy’s work and translate it in thoughts and images, for then filling up the city with colours. Colours on concrete, stories of war and peace, freedom, communications, knowledge, violated rights. It has been a very important experience for them and of us too.