Dietro il Paesaggio – Rodio, Inner Mediterranean

A Cilento village becoming a collective work of art

Dietro il Paesaggio – Rodio, Inner Mediterranean is a cultural project that brought to Rodio, a small hamlet in the municipality of Pisciotta in the province of Salerno (Campania), an idea as simple as it is ambitious: to turn the village itself into a cultural device, a place where artists and residents build a temporary community for a few days. From May 1st to 3rd, 2026, alleys, squares, courtyards, and private homes were transformed into spaces for listening, speaking, and music, just a few kilometers from the sea of the Cilento, Vallo di Diano and Alburni National Park.

The permanent exhibition at Palazzo Landulfo

The stable heart of the project is the permanent exhibition housed in the 17th-century Palazzo Landulfo, in Piazza Vittoria, inaugurated on May 1st, 2026, at 5:30 PM. The photographs by Silvia Camporesi, taken from the Atlas Italiae and Mirabilia cycles, engage in a dialogue with the texts of poet and 'paesologo' Franco Arminio; the exhibition is curated by Antonio Oriente. Unlike an ephemeral event, the exhibition does not close when the festival ends: it remains in the village as a permanent legacy, so that anyone arriving in Rodio at any time of the year can rediscover the perspective through which the project has told the story of Italy's hinterland and its Mediterranean.

Three days of widespread festival

Around the exhibition, a widespread festival curated by Franco Arminio unfolded without a single main stage: every event changes location and rhythm, and the audience walks from one stop to the next. The musical programming ranged from the concert by Peppe Voltarelli, blending singer-songwriter music and poetry, to the gypsy sounds of Taraf de Gadjo, and the instrumental encounter between Alessandro D'Alessandro and Daniele di Bonaventura. On the side of thought and storytelling, actor Rocco Papaleo presented the film Il Bene Comune, while historian Isaia Sales reflected on the role of geography in the history of Italy.

• Photography and word: Silvia Camporesi and Franco Arminio, with the conversation "A photo is a photo is a photo"
• Live music: Peppe Voltarelli, Taraf de Gadjo, Alessandro D'Alessandro and Daniele di Bonaventura
• Theater: the monologue "Alienate" with Francesca Ritrovato
• Cinema: "Il Bene Comune" presented by Rocco Papaleo
• Community: "The afternoon coffee" in the village homes and the living library "Pisciotta Human Stories"

Paesologia as a key to interpretation

The title is not decorative: behind the landscape are the people who inhabit it, the trades, the abandonments, the departures. It is the perspective of paesologia (landscape studies), the poetic discipline invented by Arminio to look at the inland villages of the South without nostalgia or pity. In Rodio, this perspective translated into concrete gestures: the community walk among the houses, the "care of the gaze" at dawn on Sunday, and the "Ceremony of the senses", the collective lunch in Piazza Vittoria that closed the three days by bringing everyone—residents, artists, visitors—to the same table.

Pisciotta Borgo Vivo and the future of the hamlets

The festival intertwined with the official presentation of the PNRR project "Pisciotta Borgo Vivo" and its related strategic marketing and communication plan, illustrated at Palazzo Landulfo on the opening day. Dietro il Paesaggio is promoted by the Incipit association, realized with the Municipality of Pisciotta and funded by the European Union, in collaboration with Fucina Rhodium, Cactus Public Art, and Noema Comunicazione. The stated goal goes beyond the event: to use culture as a lever to make life desirable again in a hilltop hamlet at risk of depopulation.

Rodio and the surrounding Cilento

Rodio is located at an altitude of about 350 meters, just over two and a half kilometers from the municipal seat of Pisciotta, among ancient olive groves and ridges overlooking the Tyrrhenian Sea. Local legend traces its origin to a settlement of the Knights of Rhodes, and the diocesan Sanctuary of Sant'Agnello Abate—the alternative venue for performances in case of rain—preserves the memory of this history. Pisciotta is famous for its alici di menaica, a Slow Food presidium caught with an ancient technique: one more reason to combine a visit to the festival with a gastronomic stop on the Cilento coast.