I’ve been to L’Aquila and its surroundings in the months of July and August 2010, one year and a half after the big earthquake of the 6th of April 2009.
I’ve met a complex reality where difficulties of everyday life are now strictly connected to the problems caused by the earthquake.
Before the catastrophe, this area was one of the most livable places in Italy, as for the rhythm of life and services offered, without mentioning its beauty and cultural attractions.
Life has become now difficult and everything is inaccessible and unachievable.
One of the causes of this situation is certainly due to the contradictions conveyed in the “emergency” status exploited by the Italian Government and the “mood” hidden behind the interventions carried out in the area.
In many cases, it is very sad to say how cleverly and skillfully the logic of fear and terror has been adopted in order to better control the population and diffuse a precise kind of assistance which doesn’t take into account many important factors of prevention, protection and growth.
The choice of fragmenting the region through a strong militarization of the entire area, and of creating physical barriers (in addition to the ones already created by the natural catastrophe) is meant to better manipulate the territory and to reinforce the exploitation of the area by small groups of people and by precise interests of abuse and manipulation.
This reminds me of what I experienced visiting Palestine where the logic of isolation and confinement is perceptible at every level of social living: physical barriers which forbid communication, psychological and emotional confinement together with a profound solitude are the main characteristics of a political design meant to control people.
There is no “home” anymore as well as there is no identity anymore. Identity is a “nowhere”, an “impotence” which is meant to satisfy a political and administrative plan of confinement.
One of the consequences of this exploitation in L’Aquila and its surroundings can be certainly individuated in the uncontrolled building, a fact I had the chance to witness: even agricultural lands in the region has been expropriated in order to build new block of flats, living areas, totally isolated and deprived by any sort of social or living criteria.
This is the case of the project C.A.S.E. (sustainable, eco-compatible and earthquake proof living complexes) where a huge amount of money has been spent without any sustainable criteria.
From an emotional point of view these people have been deprived by the possibility to provide for their own reconstruction and to take care of their own wounds, without being able of rebuilding their own “interior place” destroyed by the earthquake.
The fear and the emptiness created by the sudden lost of almost everything and, in certain cases, of anyone who represented their own lives has been emphasized by a politic of “filling” and assistance which conveys an idea of social control in order to support colored interests.
Is this maybe the myopia of our world which chooses the way of “filling” emptiness instead of enhancing “inner tools” meant to manage and rethinking emptiness itself?
Space is a connotation of the soul before being a reality. The space of living hides a quasi sentimental mood of refugee, of “home”, of intimacy. In this experience I read it as a mood of the soul, as a way of living in this world with certain clear habits and in a precise place, social context and culture.
This earthquake has left many unsolved issues and many gaps. Filippo Tronca writes from Abruzzo 24 ore: “There is a crack in everything and it’s from there that light comes in”. We are used to consider cracks, gaps, wrinkles as negative things after all; yet in these cracks is conveyed all the energy and the essence of life which has the power to rebuild, re-open a space and re-think the emptiness we fear.
Of course, this costs effort, what we call in Italian “fatica”: this word comes from the Latin word fatis which actually means crack, fissure. So, making an effort means often “to open a crack” inside ourselves, to open up and let light come in, in order to exorcise the lost, the fear, the emptiness and to share with the others our feelings. In this way it is possible to create a new dimension of the social living and a new space of living.
The project EVA in Pescomaggiore (a small village in L’Aquila surroundings) has been conceived by following this philosophy of living. It is a project of restoration of the village from a social, architectural and territorial point of view as well as of self-reconstruction of houses. A team of young volunteers, experts and people from the village lead successfully the project and everyone adds his own value, shares and makes his own “effort” in order to work cooperatively.
My own effort was then to let me inhabit by these feelings, these stories, these people in order to be able to tell my own story through my images and finally adding a value by “giving” a picture and not only “taking” it.
Thank you to Felisiano Bruni, friend and photographer, for having supported and accompanied me in this adventure.
Thank you to Filippo Tronca, journalist, and to all the volunteers of Progetto Eva Pescomaggiore, to Marcello Pezzuti, architect at Abruzzo region and member of FotoClub 99, to Nazzareno Falcone, friend and photographer, to Mrs. Anna Barile and to all the people I've met and have offered me their help, time and stories, in order to witness a tragedy of which everybody talks about but nobody really knows much.
