Living in the area to grasp its essence
To create Elementi, Edoardo Delille spent weeks in the Brescia valleys, from the peaks of Maniva to the shores of Lake Iseo, from the Val Camonica of rock graffiti to the industrious Valtrompia. He slept outdoors to capture moments of light, details of stones and water flowing in streams. He spoke with those who live in villages scattered across the mountains and with those who work in factories. He breathed the territory in which Donati was born and raised and in which the people who work there live. He started from very far away - in space and time - before arriving at production.
"The alchemy of the elements of nature flows into the DNA of those who have lived in these valleys for generations", explains the photographer, "and in this relationship I found the traces of the past who built the present. The same shapes and shades in the landscape and in the factory. The metal fusions and the reflection of a lake reflect the same light. The cave paintings engraved in the rock thousands of years ago tell us the same passions and needs of man who lives there today. The elements of nature become the mirror of life. The words and daily gestures still pass on the passion for work, the feeling for art and the love for a nature that is still strong and present. The knowledge of men forms a complex and multifaceted portrait whose story I have told."
The power of wordless communication
In the pages of Elements there are therefore earth, water, fire and air: the elements of nature and the forging of metals with flame. And so, through sequences that capture the gaze and make it investigate details, lights and colours, the work becomes the story of the soul of a territory like the landscape. Without superfluous words.
It is precisely the absence of words that is most striking in this book.
Corporate publications without corporate texts are in fact very rare: when a work is commissioned, the desire to tell one's story (and self-celebrate) often takes over. Comprehensibly.
However, in an only apparently paradoxical way, it is precisely when companies allow themselves to be discovered by educated and free voices that the best results are achieved also in terms of communication. That is, a high positioning of those who know how to produce culture for the pleasure of doing it.
Because, as Franco Albini said, "it is more through our works that we spread ideas than through ourselves".
Elementi, by Edoardo Delille, Monastero del Carmine - via Colleoni, 21, BERGAMO, 24129 until November 19th, 2023
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