MONUMENTOL’AQUILA – A monument to the city of L’Aquila
NINETY-NINE X MONUMENTOL’AQUILA
strengths | memory | resistance | Costa Mandatario | bond | fight | art | heat | Via Neri | fear | feet | heart | people | group | Castle | city | shockwave | courage | Piazza Santa Margherita | destruction | reconstruction | pain | Via Roio | remembrance | recovery | idea | work | Vico of Roiani | collaboration | humanity | help | Colle Sapone | photography | will | shoot | Viale Niccolò Persichetti | earthquake | history | crack | fault | Santa Maria del Suffraggio | new town | settlement | shores | Convento di San Basilio | support | committee | community | Piazza Paganica | center | suburbs | red zone | Collemaggio | hope | roots | dignity | Via San Michele | presence | tears | screams | San Bernardino | smiles | creativity | openness | 99 Cannelle | testimony | square | church | road | home | collapse | Via Cembalo di Colantoni | awakening | tenacity | horror | relationships | confidence | Gran Sasso | tragedy | patience | wait | men | Cathedral | women | solidarity | night | monument | rescue | damages | Chiesa del Carmine | attention | delicacy | Corso Vittorio Emanuele | care | project | frailty | encounter | existence | L’Aquila.
text by Alessandra Cianetti, independent curator
Monumentolaquila is a photographic project about the city of L’Aquila made during the summer of 2013 by artists Lavinia Tribiani and Zsuzsa Bakonyi. The city located in the heart of Italy was hit by a strong earthquake in 2009, which the city has not recovered ever since from. Real estate speculation, controveries on reconstruction, impotent media and ambiguous political acts followed, leading to the disillusionment of the inhabitants and a disability of recovering fast from the trauma of the natural disaster. The medieval city centre, which rather resembles a ghost town today, echoes the lethargy of the city’s inhabitans.
The project consists of a series of twenty-five photographs that portray citizens of L’Aquila in groups standing across some of the most significant places of their city. Since the number ‘99’ is both a mysterious and protective number for the city, altogether 99 people are depicted in the photos, They are all shown with their bare feet touching the cobbled stones of piazzas, the ground of gardens or road surfaces, as if, like shrubs, they had grown out of that very land that they belong to. They express their strong feeling of belonging with tenacity and confidence, longing or hoping to see the rebirth of their city.
The artists aimed to create an opportunity for people to make a statement to the world: here we were, here we are, here we will remain.
The main purpose of the project is to raise awareness about the real conditions of the city and thus keep alive the debate on one of the major Italian cities, which much has been said about – except for its beauty and the attachment of its inhabitans.