In 2013, an artist friend, Robert Daniels, moved from New York City to Milan. A decade later, he moved with his Italian partner, Marina, to Sicily, where they now live in Sciacca, founded in 700 BC. Today, about 35,000 people inhabit this historic town on the southern shore of the island. In May of 2026 after many invitations to visit, I traveled to France to make an excursion from Marseille to Palermo by plane and a bus ride to Sciacca. The bus left the coastal city of Palermo, a city of about 600,000 residents. Leaving Palermo, I traveled on a narrow highway up over a small mountainous ridge. Buses, unlike trains, give you a more detailed cross-section—both of the inner and outskirts of a city and the rich and poor.

The rugged geography of the landscape outside Palermo hinders suburban sprawl that characterize the outskirts of our cities. In Sicily, middleclass and poor rural dwellings are scattered on rolling hills. Gravel roads meander throughout the hills to connect multiple dwellings of cinderblock, patched stucco and stone buildings with tile roofs. Patches of small vineyards and gardens and cars surround many of the dwellings. Building materials are neatly stacked alongside small commercial and agricultural buildings. Beyond the city, I travel a hundred kilometers through rolling arid agricultural land of vineyards, olive orchards and hayfields, rocky soil and rock outcroppings.

As we near Sciacca, a density of apartment buildings crowd the roadway, with small cars impatiently moving in and out of traffic. I catch an occasional glimpse from the upper deck of the bus to the Mediterranean coastline and sea beyond. The bus stops at Lioni on the outskirts of town in a supermarket parking lot. Here, I meet my friends to shop for groceries and pack the bags of groceries and ourselves into their tiny Fiat speckled in seagull droppings. We drive into the center of the town where Bob and Marina live. We park next to a stone wall on a steep slope overlooking the sea. The sun is blistering hot. We carry our bags several kilometers up the hill, across the main plaza, and through an alleyway to my friend’s rental apartment. We unlock the large metal door and step out of the hot sun into the cool marble lobby and lock door behind us.

Here, as an many European cities, the contemporary and historic coexist. Built on a steep hillside, ancient stone buildings are disfigured with electric lines and gas pipes. Small cars are parked on narrow cobblestoned streets, often hugging the buildings. Large wooden doors close off entrances into private courtyards. Pedestrians and cars share the narrow streets, with stone sidewalks often merging into the buildings. High above the narrow alleys you have an accent of a deep blue sky.

For the next two days, I remain suspended in past time as I find my way around town in present time. I feel the slower, less demanding tempo of life’s rhythm in the Mediterranean. Aimlessness replaces “going with purpose” and I wander around wondering what I have to learn, if anything, from this adventure. I happen upon a poster announcing a lecture by a prominent curator, Professor Bruno Neri: Indizi delle’Otre, I type the title into Google Translate: “Clues from the Beyond.”  The lecture is based on a collection of essays by the above title about the exploration of consciousness, transition between Western Science and traditional Eastern wisdom to explore the mystery of death.

With this simple translation of the poster, I feel like I’m in my kind of place.

Without the language to decipher the meaning of place through words, I need to rely upon observation of what I can visually interpret and experience. The adventure in this video is getting lost and finding my way back, ever expanding the places I experience and remember as I walk around observing the ways that people conduct themselves in public with the city as backdrop. What I most notice is a culture that resides between two worlds: the distant past of old architecture and religious traditions—and—the momentary pleasures of food, drink, music, dance and lively conversation. It’s not hypocrisy; it’s a complementary way of life.