Stones Should Never Be Placed Carelessly

The series explores the stone-human relationship, with the aim to establish a personal geographical connection with the object, the material and the spirit that inhabits it.

Since I was a child, I have looked with great fascination at the world of rocks and minerals. An interest that had to do with their imperishable appearance, their aesthetic immutability and the tactile, material and visual well-being that they conveyed to me in a phase of life during which too many things seemed fleeting, mortal. A bond born almost out of necessity, to which I attributed both sacred and superstitious characters, a dualism I wanted to replicate in the series.

In the tradition of the Japanese Garden, stones play a role inextricably linked to religious and spiritual aspects: good or bad luck can result from their placement. The Italian Garden, on the contrary, does not contemplate them at all, at least not in their natural-original state. This different relationship with the stone also meant a different relationship with the territory and therefore with the landscape: experienced in predatory terms and displayed in museums as tourist attractions.

All the photos were taken in different parts of Sardinia: a place where the stones embody a multitude of realities, ranging from the enormous archaeological heritage scattered across the island treated as an open-air exhibition, to the housing development projects which now threaten not only the coastal areas but the inland territories too.

For us, stone is nothing more than a building material, a peak to climb, an ornament as an end in itself or a natural monument, the embodiment of fixity par excellence. But the stone is the result of a continuous transformation, marked by light, water and wind, as well as by human action.