Specchi di Identità – Monferrato in Dialogo con il Mondo is an inclusive cultural project created with the aim of connecting Monferrato with other territories around the world through the language of art, culture, and audiovisual storytelling.

The project is developed as a three-year journey (2025–2027) and begins in 2025 with the cultural twinning between Monferrato and Armenia, two realities that are geographically distant but deeply similar in terms of history, spirituality, relationship with the land, and community resilience.
The project aims to enhance the tangible and intangible heritage of Monferrato – landscape, viticulture, historical architecture, traditions, and community – by placing it in dialogue with other cultures from an international and comparative perspective. Culture is understood here not as simple preservation, but as an active tool for dialogue, inclusion, and building the future, capable of generating new relationships between places, people, and knowledge.

Specchi di Identità is directed and coordinated by A.P.S. SiAmo il Monferrato, which oversees the cultural and territorial direction of the project. Fondazione Time2 – Philanthropic Entity acts as the operational lead, with responsibility for cultural production and inclusive workshops, while the ETHICA association participates as a partner for relations with the stakeholders involved, contributing to the dialogue between cultural, scientific, and social spheres and facilitating the exchange between the various voices invited to participate.

Nork Group, a family-run business founded in 1997 by Norayr Khachatryan in Yerevan, Armenia, boasts nearly 30 years of successful activity and a constant dedication to excellence, through which it has built a unique corporate culture and achieved a prominent position in the Armenian region. The Group is also the founder of the Hayeli brand and participates in the project as an international partner, sharing its experience in community development, cultural collaboration, and sustainable growth.

A central element of the project is inclusive cultural production. The documentary is created through a training workshop involving young people with disabilities and/or in situations of social vulnerability as co-authors of the creative process, from writing to filming, and from sound to editing. This approach allows for the combination of artistic quality and social responsibility, transforming cultural production into a space for learning, relationships, and active citizenship. The public presentations – documentary, photographic exhibition, and bilingual publication – are designed as site-specific events hosted in historical locations in Monferrato, transforming villages and architecture into spaces for storytelling and encounter. The territory is not just a setting, but an integral part of the narrative, a living element that dialogues with other cultures and restores meaning to artistic and community practices.

The project is based on a long-term vision, in which culture becomes a tool for connection between local communities and international contexts. Through the comparison of stories, landscapes, and cultural practices, Specchi di Identità proposes a model of cultural cooperation capable of generating awareness, belonging, and new development possibilities, strengthening the role of Monferrato as an open, inclusive territory capable of engaging with the world.
The images accompanying the publication, excluding those of the interviewees, were created within the project and tell the story of the journey experienced by the young people of Fondazione Time2 during the filming of the documentary. Taken among the landscapes of Monferrato, the streets of Turin, the alleys of Venice, and the squares of Yerevan, these photographs are not simple travel documents: they are traces of a developing gaze, moments captured while the camera was rolling and the world was opening up before them.

Gioele Garino, Giada Giuffrida, Giacomo Pagliussa, and Alex Sesurschi have traveled through places far apart yet, in some way, in dialogue: they have walked among vineyards and monasteries, between ancient architecture and vibrant cities, bringing with them the curiosity and sensitivity of those discovering something for the first time. Their photos reflect that same quality of gaze — direct, authentic, and able to focus on what matters.