BASTIONS OF GARGANO
Every time I can, I listen to my mother’s and my father’s stories from their childhood. This way I find myself, even just for a moment, in a distant time, made of simplicity that is hard to find, of beauty so disarming that makes me feel an orphan of the past I never lived.
I cannot tell if those were better times compared to now, but, those stories make me sure these times were magical: colours more vivid, flavors more authentic and the air “smelled of goodness”.
Among many stories, my favourite ones are those about the games; my parents, as most of the children at that time, did not have much, almost nothing.
In reality, though, they had everything...because “playing” meant sharing and lots and lots of imagination.
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Spaccacurle, Pagghje e júrsce, I sètte préte, O limó, U castídde... some of these games I consider also mine because, luckily, I had a chance to experience them when I was a child.
Today I attempt, with this exhibition, to tell one of my father’s favourites:
U Castídde (The Castle).
The Castle, or rather, the Castles, were many hundred year old Olive Trees, hollow inside, so huge they inspired recreation of those magical, fairy-tale like places!
It was there, where my father and his friends evoked tales of kings, knights, pirates and bandits; stories and epic battles often seen a day before at the movie theater in town: Guerrin Meschino, The Knights of the Round Table, Spartacus, Captain Fire, The Three Corsairs, Ivhanoe, and many others.
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The photos were taken with the 360° camera by positioning it on the inside of the trunks; trunks so magnificent and powerful they could seem bastions of those castles, eternal guardians of our LAND!
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For us, for me, “Bastions of Gargano”
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