Temporary life

First edition of Temporary life by Francesca Cao (2020)

First impression 

Medium format paperback in new condition

Comes in a slipcase

About

Earthquakes have opened tears in the fragile geological and social fabric of Italy that have often never been mended, leaving deep traces on the territory. After the earthquake that hit Abruzzo in 2009, the photographer Francesca Cao embarked on a path of mapping the country, in search of the residues of past earthquakes, of the emergency architectures, of the attempted and failed reconstructions, which have marked the post-seismic landscape also in the ways and forms of life of the affected communities. Balsorano, Montevago, Sant'Angelo a Scala, Messina, Poggio Reale, L'Aquila.

Everyone, in the quiet of the places photographed by Francesca Cao, has an earthquake in their head. Everyone cultivates in a different way the memory of an event that changed - with different but always disruptive ways, consequences and intensities - the history of men, things, cities. After the dust had settled, the echo of the cries of the survivors, the ambulance sirens and the extraordinary editions of the news had faded, after Italy had turned its attention elsewhere, starting to look ahead again, Francesca chose to go back. With the patience and care of those who want to stitch together a story of ghosts and silent resistances, of memories and expectations, of landscapes and interrupted lives. A story that today unfolds from the pages of the book Temporary Life, to evoke the idea of ​​a "temporary" life, left in suspense, awaiting a move towards a better future.