Divisions seem to dominate daily life. As we are culled into smaller boxes of “the similarly minded” we are forced into tension with thousands of other micro-populations. Community, however, cannot be those few dozen people with whom we share an identical political ideology.

Maria Lai attempted to undo isolation and rebuild the connections with her project Tying Oneself to the Mountain (1981). Lai, in collaboration with  the residents of a small Italian village, tied the households of the village together with blue ribbon and connected the whole network to the mountain overlooking them. No household was aloud to abstain, so decades-old arguments needed to be addressed. Conflict, after all, did not negate geography—everyone lived in the same community and under the same mountain.

Sometimes, the first step in community-building is finding those with whom you agree. In Lai’s case, the first step was to acknowledge and overcome seemingly insurmountable conflicts.

Legarsi alla montagna (1981). Courtesy of Archivio Maria Lai. Flash Art. https://www.flashartonline.com/article/would-that-i-might-reach-myself-before-all-others1/