Lego Beach (a serious play), photo essay by Brunella Fratini.
[J]ust like the abandoned constructions in children’s bedrooms waiting for a new brick, a new gesture before being demolished again, the pieces in this scenery are waiting for a gesture to make them come alive once again with a new identity.
Lego beach is an investigation on the coastal territory between Abruzzo and Molise, which were once a single region within the Italian Constitution but were divided in 1963. The visual composition and decomposition mechanism of the scenery between winter and summer is surreal, almost astonishing, so much so that the area looks like a long banlieu along the SS16 and the Adriatic sea. That is how, far from everyday life in the cities, each summer that goes by leaves its scars on this area between the land and the sea – empty buildings, playgrounds with no kids, lonesome kiosks, and promenades. Lego beach is a serious game, a game for grownups, who must be careful about what they build and what they destroy. In one of the favourite places on the outskirts of Italy object of a mass summer migration, the act of visual reconstruction is a necessary conservation act. And the only act possible.
“We believe that we are a country, but the truth is that we are just over a landscape”. (Nicanor Parra)
