Impossible Conversations, Canio and QPAC

Inspired by Vanity Fair’s series called ‘Impossible Interviews’ Canio Muscillo from Muro Accounting along with eight other well known Brisbane personalities we invited by QPAC to re-image a conversation they wish they could have had with any person in time from Italian History.

Canio chose his Nonno, Michele Romano who emigrated to Australia from Italy in 1953 with nothing more than his shirt on his back and his suitcase pictured here with Canio.

Both Canio and his business partner and cousin Michele looked up to their Nonna. A man who would do anything for his family. Canio wanted to ask his Nonna about courage.

He came to Australia alone, finding work on the trains in Wallangarra moving fruit across the Queensland border until he could afford to bring over his wife and daughter Maria some two years later.

“I had to sell my only suit to pay for food. I didn’t tell your nonna. I wrote and told her to come. It was harder on her. She couldn’t speak to the neighbours, no olive oil, no pasta. But we kept going. I got a job in the council in Brisbane, and it got easier.” Canio imagined his Nonna saying.

Both Canio and Michele belive in hard work and education and hope to pass on these values to their own children, making their Nonna proud.

“I just wanted to thank you Nonna. Doing what you did, that hard brave thing, meant my life is this rich good life. It was you.”