EDITORIAL

Edoardo Mozzanega

We chose neither to indulge nor to refrain from radical choices in this issue of Milano Città Aperta. We deal with bodies, people, flesh, we deal with borderline stories – this fine border is the leading thread of the three columns and the six photo shoots of Free bodies.

A young tribe of homeless people, destroyed by drugs, by life on the streets, by night battles with drug dealers and with the police. Suzette sells her body under the glow of the streetlights. The bodies of the newcomers at the drag queen school, and finally the bodies of dolls, falling apart, twisted bodies, resting bodies, bodies that blend with inorganic matter.

When we deal with bodies, the issue is one of life or death – our body keeps us alive and determines our existence. Most importantly, there is nothing as mysterious as the body, with its seductive and decomposing flesh – within our body lies happiness and pain, astonishing beauty and the horror of death.

We would like to introduce this issue’s photo shoots on Free Bodies with a quote by Gilles Deleuze whose vibrant words echo in each picture of this Miciap issue. Deleuze refers to "bodies without organs", we call them Free Bodies, the remains of an experiment.

These bodies are daring, extreme, in search of freedom, seeking to become what they wish to be, facing their limits, experimenting without a safety net, with the danger of failing, of perishing on the battlefield.

What do we mean by free bodies? Can we be free bodies, "bodies without organs"? Can we be reborn, give a new beginning to our world?

What are bodies without organs, many ask? We are already one – stumbling like a blind man, running like a madman, a traveler in the desert, a nomad in the wild. On it we sleep, we fight, we win and we lose, we search for our place, we find incredible happiness and pain, we love.

Find your body without organs, it is a question of life and death, of youth and old age, of joy and sadness. This is where everything is at stake.
(Gilles Deleuze)

Enjoy.