Robida #7

Robida is a multilingual cultural magazine. It is published yearly by the association Robida which is based in Topolò, a village of twenty inhabitants on the border between Italy and Slovenia. The magazine explores different topics – such as abandonment, silence, the relation between domesticity and wildness etc. – which are connected to the place where the magazine comes to life, namely Topolò. The seventh issue, the biggest and most complex till now, reflects on the forest which is explored through essays, photography, art projects, academic texts, interviews, personal stories and with a balance between the poetic and the scientific gaze.
With its 336 pages, the magazine has been conceived as a forest which can be explored and walked through. Browsing through the magazine will be like walking through a forest, starting from areas with sparse vegetation and going deeper and deeper into the darkness of the woods. The contributions are organized following this idea: we first encounter the forest where the light still reaches the ground and where words are sparse as trees. The atmosphere is light and playful. Leafing through the magazine, we meet denser areas, where the discourse becomes thicker, those woods where the light seldom touches the ground. The air is wet, there are lichens, mosses, insects. We slowly start to explore what the forest is, interpreting its spaces and products, coming closer to specific types of trees and animals… Going on, the centre of the magazine corresponds to the darkest part of the forest, where words become complex and stories sometimes unspeakable: walking is difficult and words are intricate. Once out of this central, dense and dark landscape, we begin to walk out from the forest, where the content becomes once again lighter and more luminous with every step we take back into the sun.