Indeed, even as a ‘portrait’, the series embodies the same interest in the slowly unfolding, hardly changing, everyday conditions of ‘place’ that have underpinned Nostri’s work in Emilia-Romagna as a whole, being built not only around figurative studies of Anselmo but also from photographs of the place and the objects his grandfather has gradually created around himself: specifically, a domestic courtyard space where his daily work, making, mending and improvising, leaves such indelible traces of his character. Here, in one unique and certainly playful example, is the individual and idiosyncratic shaping of space over time that is, in all its ordinary particularity, so important to the history and evolving identity of the region Nostri has been keen to describe and affirm more widely in his work. But in this case that affirmation has a personal, intimate dimension, a fact that makes it pivotal to his archive: as a private locus of affection so clear and unambiguous that it acts as a kind of core from which the photographer’s response to his locality can be seen to open out. But even here, even with what is most familiar, and most loved, Nostri is able to find a sense of wonder and discovery.
From David Chandler's essay Anselmo's mirror, in L. Nostri, Anselmo, Linea di Confine editore, Rubiera (RE), 2020.
In the 1980s, noting the loss of correspondence between historical buildings and their
mummified façades and their actual use, Daniele Del Giudice incisively proposed substituting
the expression ‘spirit of the place’ – by then bereft of all meaning – with ‘spirit in the place’,
making explicit reference to the new relationship between things observed and the self. As
mentioned before, these were the years in which an alternative attitude of the gaze was being
put forward, one capable of questioning its relationship with the outside. But instead of ‘spirit in
the place’, which denotes a solitary and individual gaze, I have long proposed ‘consciousness of
place’, which entails a necessarily collective awareness insofar as it has to do with phenomena
that interact with the place as well as its social-economic relationships.
This expression, borrowed from the sociologist Aldo Bonomi, prefigures the existence of or
potential for a cultural and political process that might mediate the effects of globalisation across
the territory. This position works on the notion that the territory, in physical and material terms
and thus not only virtual and immaterial, continues to exist in the relationships between
individuals and plays a key role in their exchange relationships. At a certain point, it seemed the
disappearance of the territory had already occurred, but the economic crises of recent years,
the migratory phenomena and, not least, the threat of pandemics have proposed the
relationship between the local and the global once more and indeed on new terms. This is a
relationship that research photography will also have to reconsider, in order not to be swept
away by events and find itself mimicking prefabricated models, spewed out by the culture of
globalisation itself.
From William Guerrieri’s essay The ‘Anselmo’ series: place and ‘consciousness of place,
in L. Nostri, Anselmo, Linea di Confine editore, Rubiera (RE), 2020.
Solarolo, Via Gaiano Casanola 24, 2010-219
Solarolo, Via Gaiano Casanola 24, 2010-219
Solarolo, Via Gaiano Casanola 24, 2010-219
Solarolo, Via Gaiano Casanola 24, 2010-219
Solarolo, Via Gaiano Casanola 24, 2010-219
Solarolo, Via Gaiano Casanola 24, 2010-219
Solarolo, Via Gaiano Casanola 24, 2010-219
Solarolo, Via Gaiano Casanola 24, 2010-219
Solarolo, Via Gaiano Casanola 24, 2010-219
Solarolo, Via Gaiano Casanola 24, 2010-219
Solarolo, Via Gaiano Casanola 24, 2010-219
Solarolo, Via Gaiano Casanola 24, 2010-219
Solarolo, Via Gaiano Casanola 24, 2010-219
Solarolo, Via Gaiano Casanola 24, 2010-219
Solarolo, Via Gaiano Casanola 24, 2010-219
Solarolo, Via Gaiano Casanola 24, 2010-219
Solarolo, Via Gaiano Casanola 24, 2010-219
Indeed, even as a ‘portrait’, the series embodies the same interest in the slowly unfolding, hardly changing, everyday conditions of ‘place’ that have underpinned Nostri’s work in Emilia-Romagna as a whole, being built not only around figurative studies of Anselmo but also from photographs of the place and the objects his grandfather has gradually created around himself: specifically, a domestic courtyard space where his daily work, making, mending and improvising, leaves such indelible traces of his character. Here, in one unique and certainly playful example, is the individual and idiosyncratic shaping of space over time that is, in all its ordinary particularity, so important to the history and evolving identity of the region Nostri has been keen to describe and affirm more widely in his work. But in this case that affirmation has a personal, intimate dimension, a fact that makes it pivotal to his archive: as a private locus of affection so clear and unambiguous that it acts as a kind of core from which the photographer’s response to his locality can be seen to open out. But even here, even with what is most familiar, and most loved, Nostri is able to find a sense of wonder and discovery.
From David Chandler's essay Anselmo's mirror, in L. Nostri, Anselmo, Linea di Confine editore, Rubiera (RE), 2020.
In the 1980s, noting the loss of correspondence between historical buildings and their mummified façades and their actual use, Daniele Del Giudice incisively proposed substituting the expression ‘spirit of the place’ – by then bereft of all meaning – with ‘spirit in the place’, making explicit reference to the new relationship between things observed and the self. As mentioned before, these were the years in which an alternative attitude of the gaze was being put forward, one capable of questioning its relationship with the outside. But instead of ‘spirit in the place’, which denotes a solitary and individual gaze, I have long proposed ‘consciousness of place’, which entails a necessarily collective awareness insofar as it has to do with phenomena that interact with the place as well as its social-economic relationships.
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This expression, borrowed from the sociologist Aldo Bonomi, prefigures the existence of or potential for a cultural and political process that might mediate the effects of globalisation across the territory. This position works on the notion that the territory, in physical and material terms and thus not only virtual and immaterial, continues to exist in the relationships between individuals and plays a key role in their exchange relationships. At a certain point, it seemed the disappearance of the territory had already occurred, but the economic crises of recent years, the migratory phenomena and, not least, the threat of pandemics have proposed the relationship between the local and the global once more and indeed on new terms. This is a relationship that research photography will also have to reconsider, in order not to be swept away by events and find itself mimicking prefabricated models, spewed out by the culture of globalisation itself.
From William Guerrieri’s essay The ‘Anselmo’ series: place and ‘consciousness of place, in L. Nostri, Anselmo, Linea di Confine editore, Rubiera (RE), 2020.