Ai Piedi del Monte

Piedmont, Italy. The Langhe-Roero-Monferrato area – corresponding to the southern-eastern part of the Piedmont Region – was nominated a World Heritage Site in 2014 by UNESCO. A few months ago the Piedmont Region, in collaboration with Magnum Photos, organized the residency ‘Langhe Project’ directed by Alex Webb and Harry Gruyaert (Magnum Photos) with the aim of describing some distinctive aspects of this area, well known for its wine production. As a photographer, I have been asked to give a personal interpretation of the places of interest. I have focused my research on the relationship between man and nature in one of the greatest wilderness areas of Italy. I have analyzed the idea of ‘joyful degrowth’, developed by the philosophers Serge Latouche and Maurizio Pallante. Living the vineyards in the background, I immersed myself in woods and little villages far away from large inhabited areas, in search of people that have a strong connection with the identity of the area and who live in harmony with nature. The result of my research is ‘Ai Piedi del Monte’, a name that refers to the morphological character of the area, downstream of the Region’s mountains, and that is the literal breakdown of the name Piedmont: Pied – Mont (At the Foot – Of the Mountain).