The work is a series composed of photographs taken in the stretch that goes from Lecce to the marinas, where the mouth of the river Idume is located. The focus is entirely on the strength of water within an anthropized territory, in which these elements are entrusted with the task of creating unity in the complex urban plan between the center and the surrounding areas and the environmental fragility that involved the marinas.

On the one hand there is the stone that the landscape and with it the water management and vegetation define the area, whose quarries provide the material for houses and rural needs. The rock material is so present that it becomes an illusion representation in the shapes of objects that I constantly encounter in my exploration. On the other side there is the power of the water of the river Idume, which flows hidden in the karst bowels of the city of Lecce and appears near the coast between Torre Chianca and Torre Rinalda. Its mouth is constantly changing due to hydrogeological instability, which represents the freedom of water and its adaptation to places, a metaphor for a very important wealth, but which also makes us reflect about a nature organized by man.

The hand of man is everywhere.

It is an exploration told through the strange and ambiguous beauty of a landscape in which unexpectedly beautiful forms emerge in their softness and harshness. These forms often return and I find them in the most varied elements of a landscape, where the imprint of the human being is always present even if we practically never see it.

Lecce, 2021
Project made under the supervision of Irina Rozovsky and Mark Steinmetz during the workshop Nature organized by Transizioni and OMNE.

In collaboration with
Associazione Argentovivo
Collettivo FAC
LAB
OMNE Osservatorio Mobile Nord Est
Polo Biblio-Museale di Lecce
Comune di Lecce
Dipartimento di Storia, Società e Studi sull’Uomo dell’Università del Salento