The exhibition “Books and mud in flooded Romagna”, a photographic exhibition created by Giovanni Zaffagnini, opens on Saturday at 11am in the exhibition space of the Trisi library. Through images, he tells us the overwhelming impact that last year’s flood in Romagna had on books. Crumpled, swollen, rendered illegible, covered in mud, the photographed volumes come from the Manfrediana Municipal Library of Faenza, from the Trisi itself of Lugo and from the Alfabeta bookshop of Lugo and show us in one shot the fragility and resilience of the material.
As Marco Sangiorgi writes in the preface to the catalogue: “Once the moments reserved for live news have been archived, there is a need for a different, less frenetic, more reflective approach. Portraits of books overwhelmed by mud, in the grip of a slow and implacable. The neutral background of the images does not include any context and immediately indicates the chosen subject; And he continues: “Whoever manages waste collection informs us about the fate reserved for the flooded books: they will be ground up as part of the recycling program. So new life? Will they become books again? or will they be downgraded to wrapping paper or something else? The sensation of photographing for the last time a condemned man. The thought accompanies me from the first shot; those who love reading on paper will understand”.
The exhibition, explains Giovanni Zaffagnini, “will be enriched by unpublished photographs compared to previous exhibitions, because over time, further interesting aspects have emerged, given precisely by the visual observation of the texts. The ink on the books has faded further over time , the writings have become evanescent and the author wanted to underline the continuous process of degradation caused by the erasure of the word”.
During the entire opening period of the exhibition, which can be visited until 25 May 2024 during the opening hours of the library, it will be possible to purchase the catalog created with Zaffagnini’s shots, published by Danilo Montanari Editore, from Trisi. The proceeds from the sale of the book will be donated to the libraries damaged by the May 2023 flood in Romagna.
