Naima Morelli

2024 in review: reflections on a year of travelling

Back to my favourite tradition: the year in review.

Let’s start by admitting that 2025 has been quite the year.
I might call it the year of travelling and aventure, as I was constantly on the go. But perhaps I also might think of it as the year I felt more at home in the world. It has been truly an amazing sensation to be in Malta, Taipei, Doha, Seoul, Jeddah, or wherever—and feel like I was just a few blocks away from home.

You know the drift. They say you’re happiest when you look around and see that you’ve become what you dreamed of being as a child. Living my imaginary of when I was little, when I dreamt to be launched on a jeep full of friends in the desert, looking at the lights of Hong Kong reflecting on the bay from my window, walking around La Valletta, the city of Corto Maltese, and tanning in a beach in Marseille or Greece. I’m so grateful for all these little moments, and for the people I shared these adventures with, which made them so special.

And now that I’m typing from a café in my hometown, back for the holidays, I’m reminded that we can truly change our circumstances from those that were given at birth, if we have the bravery to follow our desires and fullfill our true destiny, embracing it, and loving it thoroughly. A bit of Amor Fati that I never fail to sprinkle here and there.

So yes, this was a year of traveling. Yes, but also a year of becoming adept at packing a suitcase, cleaning the house, leaving, and returning. Returning has of course been the best part, whether back at my favorite café—Zazie nel Metro in Rome—at home enjoying pizza with my best friends, or at a friend’s house for a home-cooked meal. I have a series of safe places to return to, which are constantly supporting by growth. It’s like the idea of the triangle: having a solid base which supports the peak moments.

I can now say I truly lived by the theme I set for myself at the beginning of the year: Lean/Clockwork. I was lean, gathering no moss, moving quickly and efficiently. I began implementing systems so that everything worked like a well-oiled machine, and I’ll keep doing this entering 2025, honing the systems more and more.

Last month, I published a story on Instagram about the 12 trips I took this year, which was welcomed with quite the interest from my buddies (travelling is a thing that binds me and many of my pals together, but I’m a rookie compared to most of them.) So let me brag a little… it’s that time of the year after all!

This year I visited Asia four times (seven times if you include the Middle East!) The one trip a month was a major goal I set at the end of last year, and I’m thrilled to say I achieved it. The destinations were: Singapore, Al-Ula in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Malta, Hong Kong, Venice, the Peloponnesus in Greece, Marseille, Korea, Paris, Qatar again, and Taiwan.

Greece in particular, a destination which I dreamed about since I was a teenager, was 95% holiday with little art, and i was able to do with my friend Leonardo, who is so passionate about sea and archeology. It was my first roadtrip, and made me want to come back for more! The neighbourhood of Monastiraki in Athens stole my heart. And really, as a lover of nuances, I looked for different iterations of my neighbourhood pigneto around the world, Cours Julien in Marseille, Seongsu-dong in Seoul, Zhongshan in Taipei, Belleville in Paris…

But it’s not just about width. It’s about depth as well. So I’ll share a few deeper reflections, as usual dividing my life into the activities that characterises it.

Journalism

My work evolved into a great adventure this year. I met fellow journalists around the world, including familiar faces I’ve developed a wonderful synergy. Never before have I felt so much a part of a global community. This sense of belonging was something I lacked in the past when I travelled to the “international art world” only sporadically. Now, on each trip, I look forward to reconnecting with members of the Asian contemporary art community or my Middle Eastern colleagues. Some of them even visited me in Italy—proving that Rome, while often sleepy, is where all the roads lead to!

This increased geographic reach and in-person experiences also allowed me to speak about the art scenes in the Gulf and Asia with much greater confidence. A collector friend remarked, “I see you’ve expanded your portfolio to the Gulf.” Could this lead to a book on contemporary art across continents? Perhaps.. for now it will become a comic book. But more on this later.

In terms of subject matter, I delved deeply into the market, writing the market report for Art SG for The Art Newspaper early in the year, as well as numerous market-focused pieces for the Financial Times.

I also had the honour of speaking at the platform C-Lab in Taiwan during a super-interesting conference on art and AI, a subject that fascinates me greatly. Beyond these highlights, I wrote for prestigious outlets such as The Art Newspaper France, Il Sole 24 Ore, and a second piece on Libyan architecture for Al-Jazeera.

As I stepped into widely read publications, I found myself handling my sources much more carefully. Never like this year, I realised that every word I wrote carried consequences—for the people involved, for the publications, and for the industry itself. I’ll bring these learnings with me this year.

While traveling so frequently, I discovered that tight deadlines sharpened my focus. Despite my busy schedule, my output didn’t diminish. But it’s true that when you see so many shows, fairs, countries, biennales, artworks can blend together. In that sense, to keep the motor running smoothly, organization is key. Moving forward, I plan to draft my impressions while traveling, so my writing at home will become faster, leaner, and more poignant.

As I mentioned I’m also building more and more structure into my work. Now that my pieces tend to fall into clear categories—reviews, market-focused articles, or interviews—I want to rely on defined structures rather than reinventing the wheel each time. This will also apply to pitches. To further refine my craft, I began a journalism course, which I’ll continue throughout 2025, as part of the investment that I make every year in my career.

Looking ahead, I aim to continue traveling and discovering the world and its art while improving my organizational skills, writing, and thinking about art’s broader implications. I’ll study more the market and how it is changing and evolving, as well as develop sturdier foundations for art cirticism. Perhaps I’ll even add a couple of major bylines to my portfolio, and make it more and more sustainable financially, which is not a given as a freelance writer living in Italy. I am brimming with ideas!

Comic Books

While work took up most of my attention in 2024, I didn’t completely neglect comics. However, I lacked an inner clear objective at the start of the year, so I experimented with different directions. Initially, I tried to continue my story, Via del Pigneto, but I found the subject too emotionally taxing and had to take breaks.

During these breaks, I created short comic stories, publishing a couple in The Markaz Review. While satisfying, I found out they required too much time and effort. Still, my longing to draw remained strong. To channel it, I focused on strengthening my weaknesses in anatomy and perspective, practicing consistently for months. This helped, but I realized I needed to dedicate my energy to finishing Via del Pigneto. A the least the pencils. Then the colouring, inking and proposal to publishers will take place next year.

By establishing a routine—drawing first thing in the morning and last thing at night without relying on references—I finally made progress, completing the pencils by year’s end. Sometimes you have to take advantage of the little pockets of time you got at hand.

One thing this year reaffirmed is that creating comics is a necessity for me. Unlike journalism, which has become highly professionalized for me, comics remain my most unbound form of self-expression.

Although I didn’t self-publish this year, like in the past few years, I did a massive step in a different direction, with a very special week which provided me with an epiphany. I went to Marseille with the very purpose of exploring the art scene there, and writing an article about it – which I did. The side effect is that I completely fell in love with the city – the sea, the beaches, the left-wing neighbourhoods, the museums, the people – and the comic scene there. Beautiful shared studios, a seriousness about comics that we can only dream of in Italy.

Visiting Marseille was a gift to myself for my birthday, and never before was I so open to everything, so consistently in love with everything I saw. (I had the same feeling only the first time I went to Singapore back in 2015.)

As a side note, my actual birthday was celebrated the day before in Rome with friends, and on the actual day of my birthday, I was at the airport bound for Seoul. The plane was late, so I missed a coincidence, and I was stuck in Paris. But damn, I wouldn’t let my birthday be spoiled by a delayed plane! As a Sorrentinean, I live by the motto: if life gives you lemons, you make a lemonade.

So I asked Air France for a night in Paris, and spent the afternoon at the Centre Pompidou seeing, the excellent Corto Maltese show, and then met a Parisian friend for an afternoon tea. Not bad at all, having a Parisian birthday instead of birthday stucked on a small sit on a 11 hours flight!

It needs to be said that I had a fascination with France since I was a kid, and as soon as I turned 18, I rushed to my first Festival of Angoulême – the biggest comic book festival in Europe. Pairing this with the good sensation that I had with Marseille gave me a new direction to pursue next year, and I have a feeling I have to do it through the medium of comics.

The idea is to apply for residencies – not limiting myself to Marseille, but widely looking to France and Belgium – and in the meantime rent a place for one month in the city, seeing if it would be feasible to have it as a “second base.”

In the space of one year that I put myself to learning French, I dramatically improved my communication skills. I did it through very fun Monday language exchange in Rome, through translating my comic book pages with a teacher, daily speaking exercises (at present I have got 218 daily recordings, as I made “voice message journals” every day since more or less March), and then reading, radio and movies. This is for me one of the most significant achiements of 2024, alongside travelling, and I’m eager to improve more and more, to get to a level C1 or even C2, who knows!

This direction is pretty exciting for me, I feel like pairing comics and France I’ll be going back to something I wanted to do even before moving to Rome from my hometown. Speaking more and more the language, it feels also like opening up a whole new part of my personality, just like I did by becoming a journalist by profession in English, and moving to Melbourne ten years ago.

Martial Arts, Yoga, Meditation, Spirit, Reflections

In terms of yoga, I have maintained a consistent practice, dedicating at least 15 minutes every day, even when traveling and confined to a tiny room. It feels good and necessary. It’s easy, like brushing my teeth. Although I sometimes try new teachers, I’ve been almost exclusively sticking to Kayla Nielsen, a favourite of mine for a very long time.

Since this summer, I’ve been exploring videos by Marine Chapon, a yoga teacher whose elegant style and aesthetics resonate with me. I’ve barely practiced with two of my other favourites, Meghan Currie and Talia Sutra, because their sessions are much more in-depth, and I’ve been quite short on time lately. So, I need a quick fix—energetic and satisfying. Kayla and Marine are perfect for this, while on Sunday I might dedicate to longer yoga sessions.

I used to say that Sunday was for the spirit. But this year, each Sunday, I’ve been going to the local café, Burro—the one with the best croissants in Pigneto—to do a weekly audit/review of my goals. This routine has massively helped me make progress and keep my mind organized. Later, the habit is to grab a second cappuccino with my Pigneto friends.

This routine has proven to be great because, generally, on “social” days, I become somewhat anxious about trying to meet everyone. But by starting the day grounding myself in the commitment I made to myself, I’m able to approach others from a centred place.

Afternoons are generally spent in a park during spring and autumn, at the beach or a lake in summer, and evenings are usually reserved for my two best friends, or for a drawing summit with two other of my friends who are also working on their comic books.

In terms of health, this year balancing my diabetes while traveling so much hasn’t always been easy. But I remember something Miley Cyrus said on the Joe Rogan podcast (I know, I know—worst example ever, why was I even listening to Joe Rogan in the first place? But still!): “Because your life is so intense on tours, when you’re home, your diet and exercise regime must be perfect to keep you healthy.” Or something along those lines—I’m not precisely quoting.

So that’s my plan for 2025: sustainable traveling, spaced out with periods of recovery. I’ll train in a way that sustains my health rather than damages it through overly intense workouts.

I’ll look for a martial art or combat sport I can start with and build upon, brick by brick, to create a consistent practice—something portable, like yoga, that I can take with me on trips. It’s always a compromise, though. The gym must be close to home, the teacher must understand the limits of my diabetes, and the discipline must be new and exciting—something I can grow with over time. A good community of people to train with is also essential. It’s not easy, I know. So, I’ll take the time to try things out and look for all these features.

As for the spiritual part, I didn’t tend much to it this year, even though there were some hard times. There has been loss, as my beloved grandfather passed away in January. He was in his late nineties and had a long and adventurous life, which has always inspired me. His stories will always accompany me and one day I will visit Chatham Island, where he lived the happiest years of his life.

It’s quite easy to forget of the matters of the spirit, especially if you tend to lose yourself in the logistics and mechanisms of life, or distract yourself with meaningless preoccupations. While direction and tools are important for moving through the world, we must never forget to anchor ourselves to what’s real, true, to the people and our love for them.

This year, aided by the tools of planning, I will cultivate three habits to help me reconnect with that part. I’ll restart meditating more seriously—getting back to the basics to build a sturdier practice. I’ll maintain my connection to nature on Sundays and listen to one spiritual podcast each week to keep learning from teachers at the forefront of my mind, and not getting lost in materialism.

Friendships, Relationships, Community, Life Lessons

In terms of relationships, this year was marked by little curiosities, which, for various reasons, never fully materialized into what I envision for myself, but provided some fleeting companionship and some pondering in terms of what I truly desire.

At the end of the year, there was a brief stint with someone from my past. While it provided some intellectual exchange, it didn’t feel right in so many ways. Moreover, over the course of 2024 I integrated many good things that our previous relationship had promised but never delivered. I worked on them by myself to the point that, when he re-entered my life, he no longer fit.

But having still an attachment, I thought that if I took care of my side of the street, things might work out for the better. So I worked on my attachment style and I can say that I achieve safe attachment. Today I’m more able then ever to discuss patiently, communicate at every turn, and regulate my emotions when triggered. This is a major achievement in itself.

However, what I didn’t anticipate was how this person would take full advantage of my good will. The whole thing inevitably crashed when, upon questioning, he finally revealed a series of major things he had been hiding. I can’t say his lies, coldness and lack of accountability didn’t sting or enraged me massively. Nor can I fault my friends for saying, “I told you so!” I guess karma keeps hitting harder until you learn the lesson.

I’m a firm believer that bad experiences are major learning opportunities. The first lesson is not to let manipulative people enter and stay my sphere (I allowed this also in friendship in the past, sadly), even if I think I can see through the lies and these people would be harmless.

The people you surround with are you biggest influences, so we must choose wisely. We have a choice at every turn, and we need to put boundaries as soon as things start feeling wrong. Even if you think there must be some goodness in them, and there is a form of connection. No more turning a blind eye to lack of trasparency, or condoning lies.

The magic is that by saying “no” to low-value behaviours – yours and those of the people around you – you’ll gather evidence, a “portfolio of proof” that this is the best line of action, both in the short and in the long run. It’s like reconfiguring your inner algorythm to feed it only with goodness, not junk. Practicing this, like a martial art, it will eventually become second-nature.

It’s important to hone the inner algorythm so that egoism, coldness and avoidance will never again be condoned in favour of some “interestingness”, but rather become instant repellents. On the contrary kindness, a good heart, honesty, generosity and character will be the basis for future connections. It seems so common sense, but how often I gave a second, third chance to people whose behaviours have previously disqualified them, just because they happen to be around? Way too many times!

In line with the theme for my 2025, which is “sturdy foundations,” I’ll look for sturdiness of character also in people, as well as cultivating my own.

I feel very lucky to be already surrounded by a number of friends who are the embodiment of these seemingly old fashion values, but are also a lot of fun. It’s truly a blessing to have all these different communities around me, all these friends that enrich my life and support it, and challenge me to go beyond my limits, to become more open, more social, more generous, less guarded, more aligned to what truly feels good.

From my bestie Giovanna, who is the sturdiest of the sturdiest, and Fabiana, to Mino, Antonello all the dojo pals on which I can always count on and are almost like an expanded family, to my friends Laslo and Leonardo, who I have been sharing my artistic path with for almost 15 years now, to the new group of the cafè Zazie, which counts among its rows kind, poised and reflective individuals like Gianmarco and Gemma, to my Pigneto friends Elliott, Camille and Julian, who generously always cook for me and welcome me in their home, to the gentle Daniele in Sorrento who I share afternoons at the beach with, and always gives me a “mezzo passaggio” to get back home… and so many more people! To credit everyone will take a whole different post.

Often those who spend the most time with me will hear me saying “La vita è bella,” when I’m suddenly hit by a moment of gratitude. I can safely say that I’m truly happy most of the time. Happy, grateful, surrounded by love.

If I think back to myself growing up, I could only dream of living like this, in a neighbourhood where I feel so at home. And circling back to the beginning, also so at home in the world. With this spirit I will enter next year. This is a good environment to build a sturdy home. Brick by brick. From the foundations up.

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