Le Linee De Una Mano (The Lines of a Hand) is a collection of black and white photographs depicting the daily life and temporal landscape of Barona, Italy. A personal meditation on place, these images depict Milano’s peripheral neighborhood where my mother grew up and grandparents still live. Having only lived there briefly as a child, its absence from my life left me with a desire to return and further understand the community and its connection to my heritage.
This work reveals moments of togetherness and solitude, both centered in a sprawled urbanity that glints with a sleepier provincial past. The portraits depict different generations of residents, connected by finding intimacy in the mundane day-to-day. Due to high unemployment rates, the younger generation spends their days idle in Barona's public spaces. The older generation settles into their daily routines even as the landscape around them shifts and changes, whether it be the construction of new infrastructure or the recent influx of immigrant residents. Le Linee De Una Mano explores Restocco Maroni’s in-betweens; youth and adulthood, rural and urban, emphasized by emotions that are ultimately my own.
This work was made possible by a Magnum Photo scholarship.