Filippo Brancoli Pantera

- a daily visual exploration -

[chapter II]

[Edition of 5+2 ap, 70x90 or 90x120 cm.]

The sun had not yet risen. The sea was indistinguishable from the sky, except that the sea was slightly creased as if a cloth had wrinkles in it. Gradually as the sky whitened a dark line lay on the horizon dividing the sea from the sky, and the grey cloth became barred with thick strokes moving, one after another, beneath the surface, following each other, pursuing each other, perpetually [...].

The Waves, Virginia Woolf

This research is born from a reflection which in turn is the fruit of a necessity: to re-establish a deep connection with the places in which we live.

If you look at anything for a long time and repeatedly, it will reveal aspects that a quick glance is not able to grasp. Maintaining the same pattern every day helps create a uniform space where it becomes easier to welcome differences; it’s a concept that always applies, from the sea to the mountains, from the wall in front of the house to a cherry tree.

Focusing on subjects that are little or not at all shaped by human presence makes it easier to eliminate distractions and thus to fully feel, once again, the power that the world around us still holds.

I go down to the shore in the morning
and depending on the hour the waves
are rolling in or moving out,
and I say, oh, I am miserable,
what shall—
what should I do? And the sea says
in its lovely voice:
“Excuse me, I have work to do”

-
 I Go Down To The Shore
Mary Oliver

In all human societies, ritual gestures have filled the space left by unanswered questions, offering an existential anchor.

In this case, the research began during the COVID‑19 pandemic in 2020 and continued on a daily basis throughout 2021. In the first phase, my gaze rested on the mountains of the Alpine valley where I was living; following a move, the work shifted its focus to the sea of Versilia (Italy), which is the subject of this project.

That period, charged with uncertainty, led me to wonder whether the restrictions on movement at the time could really compromise landscape research. I came to understand that the more I chased new subjects, the more I was actually losing contact with what surrounded me: beauty is already there; there is no need to speed up to reach it, but rather to slow down in order to perceive it.

To do so, however, a ritual was needed, with a time and a space specifically dedicated to it. So, for five consecutive months, I went every day to the same spot overlooking the sea, waiting for the moment when the night would begin to give way to the light.

It is a relatively brief span of time, yet one that has been repeating since this planet came into being: we are in the morning twilight, a liminal and transformative moment in which the world pauses and reverses its breath, giving our lives the alternating rhythm we know so well.

«Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?»
 

Paul Gauguin, painting’s title, 1897

Aside from the sea and the sky, there’s another tangible characteristic that is quite constant; color. It’s not always the same, it changes from one day to another, but we still move within what we call blue.

In this case, there is both Navy Blue and Ultramarine Blue, that of France and that of Prussia, the Persian and Cobalt, that of Yves Klein and that of the night (as well as so many others).

Of all the colors, blue seems to have a particular charm; the sea is blue, the sky is blue, even our planet is blue when seen from afar.

Yet its success is so recent that before the year one thousand there is almost no trace of it in Europe. This didn’t happen just because of price reasons (indigo and lapis lazuli came from the East and were expensive, the ford was European and cheap) but also cultural ones; in Rome, this color was considered vulgar and even one to bring bad luck because it was related only to the underworld.

Instead, the Celts and the Germans made use of it, thus transforming a chromatic choice into a political one; because behind any aesthetic choice, there is always a cultural assumption.

«Poetry is a matter of life, not just a matter of language»
 

Lucille Clifton

I’ve been connected with this specific stretch of sea for more than 40 years, yet it seems to be the first time when I can really see all its beauty.

He who hesitates is lost (goes the saying), but getting lost is an essential requirement for finding yourself again.
 

There is a moment, between when we get lost and when we rediscover our bearings when our mind settles and gains awareness. When we are aware, we begin to relate to our surroundings and see things that we would have never seen otherwise.

I wondered if the increasing inability to carefully observe the surroundings is just one of my characteristics or if it’s also linked to the times that we are experiencing.
 

Our society is now transitioning from the age of speed to that of ubiquity; the first was mechanical, the second represents technology, but both affect the experience we have of space: moving fast from one place to another, trying to be present in several places at the same time.
 

To establish a relationship with the environment where I live, I need to counteract this phenomenon by putting into practice a unique ability: that of just being.
 

I’m good as I am. Instead of like in a poker game, where it makes sense to change the cards, the world just needs to be looked at more intensely to bring out all its beauty.

Anthropologist Ernesto de Martino originated the term ‘territorial anxiety’ to express not only the suffering of those who were taken away from their land, but also the inability of people to settle in, to connect to a place.
 

The spaces we inhabit have gone from being witnesses of a mythical archetype, therefore connected with eternity, to represent a space that will certainly be modified in just a short time, symbolizing the ephemeral.
 

Those who stop in front of the sea know that the depth of what they see reflects the depth of the universe.

They were or they weren't.
On an island or not.
An ocean or not an ocean
swallowed them up or it didn't.

Was there anyone to love anyone?
Did anybody have someone to fight?
Everything happened or it didn't
there or someplace else.

Seven cities stood there.
So we think.
They were meant to stand forever.
We suppose.

They weren't up to much, no.
They were up to something, yes.

Hypothetical. Dubious.
Uncommemorated.
Never extracted from air,
fire,water, or earth.

Not contained within a stone
or drop of rain.
Not suitable for straight-faced use
as a story's moral.

A meteor fell.
Not a meteor.
A volcano exploded.
Not a volcano.
Someone summoned something.
Nothing was called.

On this more-or-less Atlantis

-
Atlantis

Wisława Szymborska

pluf

🙏