“Amricord”, in the Parma dialect “I remember”, represented for me the incipit of one of the many stories that my grandmother told me.
It was a bit like “once upon a time” that opened up before my eyes as a child, cared for first by her, and to those of the adult who then took care of her, a series of anecdotes whose protagonists were colorful characters, some of whom with imaginative nicknames.
When she lost her son, my father, Grandma Gina gradually lost her memory of the present time.
On the contrary, the memories of the past, of her origins and of her people have remained firmly within her and her stories, resistant to the elements of time and sorrows, just like the stone house in the village where she was born and lived before to meet and get married to my grandfather and move to Genoa.
Bore, in the province of Parma, is a small town with few inhabitants and good air.
In some places it seems that time has stopped, the people are kind and when you meet someone on the street they always say hello.
I went back there to tell her memories with images and review them in the light of the present.
I photographed the places he spoke to me about, I tracked down the people he knew directly or who are radically and viscerally linked to his land.
Inevitably, grandmother’s stories have become mine too, the looks of people and their lives have entered my heart, the places in my soul.
In one of the first photos I took, there is an empty chair looking out over the view.
I imagined that she was sitting there remembering and reliving, through my eyes, that part of her life from which she has never completely detached herself, despite the distance, the years and the illness.
