- New alliances
Religious little niches and aedicules, where the effigies of saints find shelter, characterize the Italian landscape. For decades or centuries, with their widespread presence, they have been the privileged witnesses of the transformations that have occurred and take place in the landscape.
But what do the saints see from those aedicules? This is the question I asked to hundreds of people in the region, asking them to send me photos of what the local saints see on the territory. The reaction was remarkable: I received more than 2900 landscape photos from every corner of Lombardy.
The aim, beyond the photographic aspect, was above all human and social: to make people aware of the territory, to make them reflect on the landscape in which they live and on the transformations, on the evolutions, on the havoc that their urban environment suffer.
A population aware of the place where they live is a population that is more attentive and active in the decisions that change the territory.
The project has been developed in 2019, produced by the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Milan. Thanks to a series of meetings and presentations in the whole region, I involved almost 300 people who sent me images of over 2900 landscapes seen through the eyes of the saints.
In this file an image of the exhibition at the Museum. The photos have a peculiarity: the passepartouts are cropped according to the shape of the aedicula from which the photo was taken.
In this image, one of the 2921 photos taken. The photos has been taken in the suburbs of Milan.
The project was simple to do: we went in search of these niches and little temples, and we took a photo. But we didn’t take the picture of the saint, we flipped the camera, placing the viewfinder in correspondence with the eyes of the saints, showing what they see of the surrounding area.
This picture has been taken in Gorgonzola (the city that gives the name to the cheese), not far from Milan. It is the point of view of a Madonna who protects the inhabitants from the waters of the canal.
This picture has been taken in the historical centre of Vigevano, in the south west of the region. It is the point of view of the Madonna together with San Carlo, who observe the city from an ancient late Baroque niche nestled in an old palace facade.
”Saintscapes" is the book that presents this huge research. The publication - in Italian and English - takes inspiration from classic editions such as missals, touristic guides, dictionaries. In 700 pages, the book presents a selection of 1000 images including full-color photographs and black and white miniatures, as well as a general index that shows the data of the niches photographed.
