ISOLE D'INVERNO

I always wondered why this big puzzle was on my grandmother's wall between pictures of family weddings and pictures of saints. During the long winters on the island of Ponza, my grandfather composed the puzzle with his seven children.

Once the composition was finished, my grandfather and his family would break it down and start over. “It was a way to spend the winter,” my father once told him. This image reinforced my sense of belonging to these "pieces" of the family. I felt the need to put all the pieces together by returning to live on my island and seeking cold winters on other islands. From 2012 to 2017 I sailed to Capraia, Lampedusa, Linosa, Pantelleria, Procida, San Pietro, Giglio, the Aeolian Islands, Egadi, Ponziane and Tremiti to tell the stories of these small Italian islands exclusively during the winter. This season strips these lands of the stereotype of summer paradise and shows a different beauty, made of sudden changes in the wind, of beaches that become fairy tales and tragedies.

Mine is a map of something near that is far away, a survey of the condition of the islanders and that condition stands out in winter. Rough seas prevent the departure of the ferry, the arrival of water from the mainland and the transport of tankers, the men who fish for squid and hunt migratory birds, the only open cafe on the island, stray dogs and many others.stories are all little allegories. Each island has its own story which has its roots in the long history of the Mediterranean Sea.

I've lived on the island for over a month, experiencing silence and expectation, speaking of this unpredictable wind, which blows from the northwest then suddenly turns east and you don't know not what his next direction will be.

Understanding how the sea, seen from the island, reveals itself as unstable evidence.

I am already working on the second edition of Isole d'inverno, which will include the other islands that I have not photographed during the years of the project.