Stick Friends

The exhibition was born from the idea of valorizing and promoting a profoundly complex object, the walking stick, which stands out for its apparent simplicity and changeability.

The exhibition was born from the idea of valorizing and promoting a profoundly complex object, the stick, which stands out for its apparent simplicity and changeability. The stick is the simple object, collected by mountain children of all generations in the woods that surround us. When walking, the stick is a support and a help in the fatigue of walking, it advances before us to discover the impervious and unknown terrain; it strikes to defend us and, thanks to the imagination, it becomes a playmate and easily transforms into a fantastic being. With the exhibition “Bâtons Amis” we want to offer the public and our artisans some suggestions on the importance and beauty of this artifact. The protagonist of the exhibition is told, in the rooms of the Casaforte, in an unexpected typological variety: the ritual, propitiatory, defense and power sticks coming from distant lands; the precious Bishop’s Pastoral; the jester’s stick and that of the pilgrim; that of the diviner; the weapon stick; the contemporary sticks, light and technological, used by the great champions of sport; the Aosta Valley walking and “work” ones and finally a heterogeneous valuable and curious collection of a lover of the stick object. Also for this exhibition the stick artefact has not been treated for its artistic, anthropological and historical-social value, but observed only from the point of view of craftsmanship.