Dedicated to 20 guests/patients affiliated with the mental health centers of ASL Città di Torino, all affected by medium to severe psychiatric conditions, the project—launched in February 2025 and lasting one year—is carried out at the Domenico De Salvia Therapeutic Community, located at Corso Vigevano 58/a in Turin.

In addition to some internal residents, the community welcomes others from the nearby Sarli and Risso Therapeutic Communities, forming a diverse group in terms of age and gender.

Most patients show clinical stability, though they still present pronounced symptoms that severely affect their communicative, expressive, and relational abilities, as well as limit their attention and concentration capacities.

“Umanamente grazie” (Humanly, Thank You) aims to improve the overall well-being of psychiatric patients (by reducing anxiety and stress, enhancing awareness of their own resources, and developing better relational, expressive, and concentration skills) through their participation in an artistic-expressive workshop path. This path is designed to encourage body awareness, emotional expression, and socialization.

The project is the result of, and continues from, a year-long collaboration between the tardito/rendina company and the De Salvia Community, supporting patients through activities centered on breath and movement.

The journey aims to create a space of attention and care, bearing witness to a possible beauty, where fragility becomes a resource and serves as a guide to a genuine way of feeling—light and unbound by form—rediscovering a vital body, capable of navigating the unexpected. The body becomes a place of its own resources and responses—creative, and awakening shared, beneficial traces.

In addition to weekly movement sessions led by the tardito/rendina company, “Umanamente grazie” involves two additional professionals: Barbara Altissimo and Federica Tripodi, both actresses and experienced pedagogues long engaged in the social field. The project is also fueled by the desire to offer participants new, encouraging, and enjoyable tools to express their inner worlds in different ways.

Furthermore, professional photographer and videomaker Marko Tardito, usually active in the fashion industry, will be invited to follow the workshops. His work will culminate in a photo exhibition and a book, with the aim of bringing the experience to a new level of aesthetics—overturning the clichés typically associated with imperfection. The goal is to cultivate and reeducate the gaze toward wonder and the welcoming of unexpected beauty.

At the end of the first cycle of workshops (autumn 2025), the tardito/rendina company will perform their show “Tempo”within the Community. Dedicated to the time of childhood, the performance is especially suited to the context due to its lightness and simplicity. It is an invitation to view the world from within a pause.

A good preliminary practice before any other is the practice of wonder. To train oneself not to know and to be amazed. To look around and let go of the concept of tree, street, house, sea, and to look with eyes that ignore the familiar. Practicing wonder heals the heart that has only known fear.

—From “Questo immenso non sapere” by Chandra Candiani

Project supported with Otto per Mille funds from the Waldensian Church.