Sea Walls

After the disappearance of my father I had been affectionately next to my mother, left alone at fifty- five, as if she were my friend, my little girl. On my 36th birthday my mom was rushed to hospital due to intestinal obstruction. I did not know it was such a serious thing, it was a colon adenocarcinoma, already infiltrated.

The doctor spoke to me standing in the corridor. Six months to live. My mother! I hadn’t foreseen her dying, not at 74 in full body and spirit form. My sister was right when she brought me back down to earth: I believed that my mother would be eternal. Then a terrible pain rose from inside me that took my breath away. The air came out of my mouth with a hiss, the beginning of a cry that was desired but could not manifest itself. Everything was made even more terrible by the course of the disease, the hopes dashed by the useless surgical operations, the tortures of chemotherapy, the lies told to not admit, to her and me, what was the hard truth, spying on the symptoms that from day to day they manifested themselves punctually.

Every now and then I managed to have a few hours for myself and then I would go for a walk on the beach of Varigotti to try not to think. I took photographs of the Mediterranean landscape, the Saracen houses and the sea.
Thus was born a series of sweet, calm, soothing images, symbolic of what I desperately needed at that moment.

Years later I participated with these photos in national photographic competitions, winning many as best author. But as I was able to say in an interview, I was not going to photograph Varigotti to win competitions but because my mother was dying.

The following year my mom was gone. Collected all the photos I had taken in that period, I presented them in an exhibition. Thus was born “Muri di Mare” (which in Italian is a pleasant linguistic alliteration unlike the English translation). So I presented the exhibition while making a dedication to my mom:

“Even if we turn our backs to the sea, our Ligurian walls silently testify to its nearby presence: stains of humidity and salt, abandoned objects, cracks and sand that creeps into every corner. In the landscape, walls and sea coexist in aesthetic symbiosis but also in inner conflict. The wall, immobile, is safety, shelter, family. The sea, eternal and never the same, is a living, unexpected thing, adventure, solitude. It is a friendly and constant presence, with a calm breath, with a reassuring embrace like that of a mother. I started this series while you were leaving, now that my work is finished I have only these images to talk to me about you forever ”.