Chinese Whispers is a project in continuous evolution that spreads with multiple modalities the poem Girovago by Giuseppe Ungaretti. The protagonist – accompanied by the constant feeling of not belonging to any country – lives the unending research of “an innocent land”. He moves hoping to find one but he always leaves the countries in which he lived feeling as a stranger.

Nine expats – Italian, English, Mandarin, Hindi, Spanish, Arabic, French, German, Hebrew – have been involved and recorded while reciting the poem Girovago by Giuseppe Ungaretti in their native languages. The number of people involved is destined to grow because more languages will be added.

The project consists of several elements: Chinese Whispers is an audio composition with the recitations of the poem in nine different languages which play separately one after the other. As soon as the poem is recited in all the languages, the recordings start to overlap each other until creating a choir of voices: a community of people that tells the feeling of being a foreigner.

Each time the project is exhibited, a new edition of soccer scarves is produced. The last verse of the poem “I seek an innocent Land” is embroidered on the scarves in two different languages, a language on each side. The editions of scarves produced so far are: French/Arabic (30/30), English/Hindi (30/30), German/Chinese (30/30), Italian/Hebrew (100/100) and Spanish/Arabic (50/50). The scarves are the pretext to spread the feelings of the protagonist of the poem and create a community of people who support each other, people that share or try to understand what it means to be a foreigner.

Another constant element of the project is a libretto containing all the translations of the poem which is available to the public. The booklet is designed to help visitors follow the audio composition in the languages ​​they know and familiarize themselves with the unknown alphabets.

According to the context where the project has been shown – alongside the audio composition, the soccer scarves and booklets – other elements have been used for the poem spreading process, including: temporary tattoos applied by a performer on the skin of visitors, stamps, takeaway posters and banners.