The Licutians (I Licutani)
In the picturesque port of San Giovanni Li Cuti, located in the city of Catania, every day a group of swimmers gathers to enjoy the sea and its benefits.
These are middle-aged men and women, some are unemployed, others retired, some others are there to take advantage of their lunch break to go for a swim, a sort of ritual that is carried out in any season of the year as an antidote to life’s adversities.
This is how the small community of “Licutiani” was spontaneously born over the years and today characterizes and colors the Catania pier with their bodies, their voices, their stories.
And while taking turns between swims, the dock becomes a stage where an extraordinary, diverse, at time surreal humanity manifests itself through the singular personalities.
Like unwitting actors, some of them come into the spotlight showing off their more eccentric and grotesque side with ease, arousing curiosity, wonder, and sympathy in passers-by.
But behind the theatricality and self-irony, the Licutians harbor an intimate awareness. Li Cuti is noi just a place, but a center of gravity where often invisible existences find recognition and belonging.
Here, they fell welcomed and sheltered from judgmental glances and social logic, no one questions the past or imposes a role, and each individual can simply be themselves.
For a true Licutian, there is no greater desire than to return the next day, balanced on those tipical lava cliffs, the “cuti lisci”, and feel once again part of this scenario.
Because Li Cuti is their home, their life.