VC PROJECTS

UPCOMING EXHIBITION 2026

FRANCESCO TORI AND LINDA ZAMBOLIN - ONCE A UPON A TIME - PHOTOGRAPHY AS INCARNATION OF PLACE - DURING A 2026 ( A YEAR OF pastures)

CREATIVE ARCHETYPE, PHOTOGRAPHY AS THE INCARNATION OF PLACE

THE PHOTOGRAPHY OF CREATIVE ARCHETYPE, THE DUO COMPOSED OF LINDA ZAMBOLIN AND FRANCESCO TORI, SPEAKS A LANGUAGE FAMILIAR TO THOSE WHO KNOW HOW TO LISTEN TO PLACES. EVERY PLACE HAS A SOUL, A VIBRATION, LIKE A VOICE THAT COMPLETELY PERMEATES IT, PROVOKING THAT METAPHYSICAL SHIVER THAT IGNITES CREATIVE ACTION.
IT IS ABOUT CREATIVITY, PURE, CRYSTALLINE, LIKE SPRING WATER, A REFRESHMENT IN THE MODERN CONTEMPORARY WORLD, BLINDED BY THE ART OF ECONOMY, THE COMMERCIAL ART THAT, BY VIRTUE OF ITS PROJECTION TOWARD THE FUTURE, LOSES ITS OWN “HERE AND NOW” OF LIVED EXPERIENCE.

THE “PRESENT” OF LIFE HAS BEEN LOST, OF EXISTENCE, WHICH INSTEAD CREATIVE ARCHETYPE SEEMS TO WANT TO CRY OUT WITH AN ELEGANCE THAT NEVER FLAUNTS BUT MAKES ONE REFLECT—SO ORIGINALLY CLOSE TO THE GREAT QUESTIONS OF HUMANITY.
THE HIDDEN VOICE OF THE WORLD, THAT WHISPERS IN THE PLACE, STRIPPED OF INTEREST, FROM THE CHAOTIC RACE TOWARD NOTHINGNESS, DOES NOT SO MUCH PROVIDE ANSWERS BUT RATHER MAKES US ASK: WHO ARE WE? A TRIVIAL QUESTION, PERHAPS YES, PERHAPS NOT AT ALL, CERTAINLY TIED TO EACH ONE’S JOURNEY. WHO HAS NEVER DARED TO ASK THEMSELVES ABOUT THEIR OWN IDENTITY?

WE ARE IN ORDER TO BE—THIS COULD ALREADY SEEM LIKE AN ANSWER, AND CREATIVE ARCHETYPE LEADS US TO ASK, WITHIN “WHO WE ARE,” PRECISELY THIS. WHO ARE WE? WE ARE TO BE, AND TO BE WE MUST ABSOLUTELY PUSH AWAY NON-BEING, THE VOID. WE MUST “FILL OURSELVES WITH BEING,” WITH WHAT ALLOWS US TO APPRECIATE THE PRESENT MOMENT, LIKE EMOTION.

CREATIVE ARCHETYPE FEEDS ON AND IS NOURISHED BY EMOTIONS. THE VINTAGE, THE METICULOUS RECOVERY OF TIME IN THE PHOTOGRAPHED IMAGE, IS PRECISELY THIS: A WILL TO WELCOME HISTORY AS RETURN, AND THIS RETURN—THE INNER JOURNEY OF EACH PERSON TO AND FOR THEMSELVES—IS A PATH OF RECOVERY OF HUMAN IDENTITY, OF THE IMAGE THAT PRESENTS HUMANITY TO ITSELF AS A BEING OF EMOTION, NOT ONLY OF REASON, OF LOGOS.
ONCE UPON A TIME RECOVERS THE DENSITY OF PRESENT EXISTENCE, WHICH IS OTHERWISE RAREFIED IN THE CURRENT WORLD. IT SEEMS LIKE A GAME IN REVERSE: THE PHOTOGRAPHY THAT FIXES THE IMAGE IN THIS PROJECT BY CREATIVE ARCHETYPE IS, IN FACT, DELIBERATELY TREATED TO APPEAR NINETEENTH-CENTURY, ROMANTIC, WITH A BLURRED ASPECT—AND YET, IT HAS AN ENORMOUS SHARPNESS OF FOCUS, BECAUSE IT SHOWS US, MAKES US TRULY SEE WHAT MATTERS: THE STRENGTH OF PLACE, ITS VOICE, IT MAKES THE SOUL OF THAT PLACE ACCESSIBLE. THIS IS IN CONTRAST WITH THE CLARITY OF CERTAIN PHOTOGRAPHY, PERHAPS PERFECT, BUT THAT RENOUNCES THE RIGHT TO IMPERFECTION.

IT IS IMPERFECTION THAT MAKES US HUMAN, AND THUS ALONG THE IMPERFECT DETAIL RUNS THE CAPACITY TO FEEL ONESELF AND PERCEIVE ONE’S OWN UNIQUENESS—WHAT TRULY MAKES US PERFECT TO OURSELVES, MAKING US THEREFORE UNIQUE, BUT ALSO FREE. FREE TO BE, AUTHENTIC, NOT TO APPEAR ACCORDING TO A PRE-ESTABLISHED CANON, A STRUCTURE. IT IS THE SELF THAT PLACES ITS OWN INNER SELF ABOVE THE DEEP VALLEYS OF THE SOCIAL MECHANISM OF ILLUSION, OF FORCED PERFECTION, IMPOSED, NOT CHOSEN. IT IS NOT THE FRUIT OF WILL—PERFECTION SOCIETY IMPOSES ITSELF—WHILE CREATIVE ARCHETYPE, WITH METICULOUS WORK BENEATH THE SURFACE OF THE IMAGE, OF PHOTOGRAPHY, RECOVERS THAT VAST PORTION OF BEING THAT FORCEFULLY RESISTS THE DEGRADATION OF IMPERFECTION INTO PERFECTION, AND THEREFORE OF THE SELF INTO A NON-SELF.

BENEATH THE SKIN OF THE PERSON, IT WELCOMES THAT STIFLED CRY OF PERSONALITY THAT WOULD LIKE TO COME OUT, EVEN SCRATCH THE WORLD, FOR THE SOLE PURPOSE OF SAYING: “I EXIST.” ULTIMATELY, NO BEING CAN FALL IN LOVE WITH PERFECTION—WHEREAS, IN IMPERFECTION LIES SELF-LOVE, FORGIVENESS, AND RECONCILIATION WITH ONE’S OWN BEING.

CREATIVE ARCHETYPE DECONSTRUCTS THE PRESENT INTO AN IMAGE OF THE PAST, RESOLVING THE PRESENT IN THE CONTINUITY BETWEEN INNER AND OUTER, SOUL AND WORLD, WHICH CAN FIND RESOLUTION ONLY IN THE SUBJECT.
WHERE, THEN, IS THE SUBJECT IN ART? HERE IT IS—IN CREATIVE ARCHETYPE, IT IS THE SUBJECT WHO EXPOSES ITSELF, ITS OWN LIVING FLESH, TO THE PUBLIC; ITS OWN INNER SEA. EMOTION BREAKS THE SILENCE AND ASSERTS ITSELF POWERFULLY BEYOND THE CONCRETE BARRIER OF CALCULATING REASON.

IT IS A DEMANDING UNDERTAKING, THAT OF CREATIVE ARCHETYPE; IT IS NOT SIMPLE TO MAKE ONESELF INTO SUBJECTS CAPABLE OF LISTENING IN A WORLD THAT IS MOSTLY DEAF. BUT JUST AS BEETHOVEN CONTINUED TO COMPOSE DESPITE HIS DEAFNESS, SO TOO IS BORN A MASTERPIECE OF AESTHETIC SENSITIVITY.

IN ONCE UPON A TIME, CREATIVE ARCHETYPE TAKES NATURE—UNDERSTOOD AS A COMPLEX SYSTEM OF INTERACTION BETWEEN HUMAN AND WORLD—AND MAKES IT ITS OWN, DIGESTED BY HUMAN SUBJECTIVITY PURIFIED OF THE IMPASSE CONDITION OF CONTEMPORARY NON-BEING AND INTEREST-DRIVEN CHAOS. THE RESULT IS EXCEPTIONAL: TO SPEAK HUMANLY TO HUMANITY, ALL THE FRUIT OF A CONTINUOUS LISTENING TO THE SOUL OF PLACES, WITH THAT CHARACTERISTIC BLACK AND WHITE, WITH THE WOODEN FRAME, WITH THE GENTLE SURFACING OF THE IMAGE THAT SEEMS TO HOVER LIKE THE ENDING OF A POEM—SO POWERFULLY EVOCATIVE.

TO CONCLUDE, EVERYTHING FLOWS FROM EMOTION AND BECOMES FLESH: PHOTOGRAPHY COMES TO LIFE, ACQUIRES LIVED EXPERIENCE, THAT OF THE PHOTOGRAPHERS THROUGH EMOTION, AND CAN CARRY OUT THE TASK NOT OF MECHANICAL ASSUMPTION OF REALITY, BUT OF ITS COMPREHENSION—OF SOMETHING MADE ONE’S OWN, RETAINED.
ONCE UPON A TIME IS NOT JUST A PHOTOGRAPHIC PROJECT, BUT THE RESTITUTION OF SOUL TO PLACES AND, PERHAPS, OF SOUL TO HUMANITY WHICH, LIKE A SAD AND LONELY WANDERER, HAS TRADED ITS OWN HAPPINESS FOR A NEED, BELIEVING ITSELF TO BECOME RICH, ONLY TO DISCOVER ITSELF INFINITELY POOR.

GIUSEPPE MARIA ANDREA MARRONE

supportive press regarding ‘2026 Year of Pastures’

L’Onu nomina il 2026 l’Anno Internazionale dei Pascoli e dei Pastori

• Translated from italian to English - via: Chat GPT

The UN has designated 2026 as the International Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists”

Alpine pastures represent an important resource for the territory and the mountain economy and must be preserved, protected, and enhanced for their environmental, landscape, social, cultural, and economic functions. Their presence guarantees a series of essential ecosystem services, including the production of fodder (Suttie et al., 2005), carbon sequestration (da Silva et al., 2022), reduction of soil erosion rates, nourishment for pollinators, and tourist-recreational activities (Bellocchi et al., 2018).

However, these services can only be provided with careful and correct management of alpine pastures, since these are highly heterogeneous and complex environments (Habel et al., 2013), whose plant composition is determined by the interaction between environmental factors, such as rainfall rates or temperature, topographic factors, such as slope or aspect of the mountainside, and management factors, such as grazing (Buxton & Fales, 1994; Jeangros et al., 1999). Grazing is one of the main causes of vegetational dynamics in mountain grasslands, since proper grazing management can be understood as an intermediate level of disturbance, which leads to a maximum level of biodiversity (Huston, 1979). Specifically, low disturbance intensity corresponds to lower competition among plant species and consequently reduced biodiversity, just as with high levels of disturbance, where species unable to recolonize and/or grow rapidly perish. Similarly, overgrazing or undergrazing would lead to a loss of ecosystem functionality: in the first case through the creation of trails with increased risk of soil erosion, negative interactions with wildlife, and proliferation of nitrophilous species with consequent damage to plant communities (Gusmeroli, 2012); while in the second case, shrubs and woody species would advance, progressively reducing grazeable surfaces (Espunyes et al., 2019). The result would therefore be a failure to provide ecosystem services and the loss of important environments on our planet.

It is therefore evident that correct application of pastoral practices is fundamental for the conservation of these fragile environments. Focusing for a moment on pastoral practices, one can observe that they have very ancient roots: think of the siunere, women from Alta Valle Cervo (BI) who went to higher-altitude meadows to collect siun, a mix of green grass used to feed animals during the winter months, or the practice of transhumance, still applied today, which allows the subsistence of many extensive cattle, sheep, and goat farms. Human presence has made it possible to preserve pastures over time, for example through grazing that counteracts the advance of shrubs (Probo et al., 2013). The cutting of forests made it possible not only to obtain wood for commercial or fuel purposes but also to create new grazeable areas; moreover, it allowed the development and maintenance of mule tracks and paths, improving their usability and tourism.

The summer period spent in alpine pastures was also an opportunity to transmit traditions, the passion for simple and genuine things, and to learn how to use everything that nature offered. For example, in late spring many wild herbs were collected to cook delicious and nutritious dishes; thistle flowers were picked to allow carding of wool for subsequent spinning and weaving to produce fabrics—an immense source of pride for Biella. These periods of strong human pressure were later contrasted by phases of abandonment, as happened following the industrialization of the 20th century, which offered better living conditions in cities, leading to the decline of the alpine economy and the consequent re-naturalization of previously used environments (Barbaro et al., 2001).

The pasture is not only a place where animals spend the summer months, but it contains an invaluable source of knowledge, legends, traditions: the skilled hands of a margaro making cheese, a siunera who recognizes quality herbs or mends a garment by lamplight at dusk, the sound of animal bells—these are fundamental pieces of our tradition. The use and frequentation of pastures allows not only their conservation and the ecosystem services they provide, but also the education toward awareness of one’s own origins and traditions.

https://unric.org/it/lonu-nomina-il-2026-lanno-internazionale-dei-pascoli-e-dei-pastori/