Time Regained
The truth will only begin to emerge from the moment that the writer takes two different objects […] and encloses them within the circle of fine style […] unites them in a metaphor.
Time Regained, Marcel Proust*
The COVID-19 lockdowns closed the external world and opened the inner world. I had to pause commercial projects and I was able to go ahead with my contemplative photography. Amid self-reflection, I was playing solitaire — black on white, stone on water, despair on hope or in another order — in this way the project was born.
On the surface, this is my poem about deserted, nude but always beautiful Venice. However, if look a little deeper, it is about a reader or rather about a viewer. The protagonist of the Proust novel immerses himself in his life memories through external images and things. Similarly, finding metaphors through photographs viewers immerse themselves in their reflections. The photographs go in a certain order like one thought leads to another:
Recovery
Saviour
Leviathan
Cruise ship
Aurora
Crosses
Chained
Reflections
Nakedness
2020-2021
Yes, the time had stopped, however, it was not lost but regained. Flooding amid climate change and environmental challenges are the most topical for Venice and its Lagoon. During the last couple of years, the city showed significant achievements. In 2020 Venice held back the sea for the first time in 1,200 years thanks to the activation of its long-awaited flood barriers MoSE (Modulo Sperimentale Elettromeccanico). The system is expected to be completed in 2022. Venice’s ban on cruise ships is a vital step towards saving the lagoon’s fragile ecosystem. A new city system of tracking visitors will help create a more sustainable tourism plan for the future.
Lost Time or Regained is a personal choice that extends beyond lockdowns.
*(the 150th anniversary of Proust’s birth in 2021; the 100th anniversary of his death in 2022)