The versatile Italian artist—writer, poet, playwright, director, philosopher, critic, and publicist—Pier Paolo Pasolini (1922–1975) spent a year of his childhood (from the autumn of 1930 to the autumn of 1931) with his family in Idrija. This time and place remained deeply embedded in his memory and subconscious, and traces of it have been discovered in several of his literary works. For this reason, we have designed the Pasolini Trail in Idrija, featuring seven points that are more or less directly connected to the life and work of the man Zigaina called “the most controversial Italian intellectual of his time.”

The guiding theme of the trail is Pasolini’s childhood and youth, through which we aim to awaken an interest in this exceptional creator among visitors, especially children. The importance of children’s play in fostering imagination and expanding the boundaries of the inner world remains highly relevant in a world where children are increasingly pushed out of urban environments. This concept dictates both the shape and color of the backrests and signboards on the benches, which symbolize spaces for children’s play. In a playful manner, they hint at the seriousness and social critique inherent in Pasolini’s body of work, while simultaneously acting as a unique foreign element within the historical fabric of Idrija. This mirrors Pasolini’s own distinctiveness—an otherness for which he ultimately paid with his life.

The first point is located in front of the old elementary school.