Strada Dei Ricordi

It feels like I’ve been here before. I think maybe the photographs already existed and it was my job to scour the cities and retrieve them. Do I dream in color? Do I remember things in black and white... in infinite shades of gray? A broken chair that speaks of the hundreds of people who might have once sat on it, now discarded. A broken picture frame now relegated to holding forth over a pile of trash. What image did it once hold? Saints are everywhere on the streets here, perhaps to offset the steady flow of sins committed by the minute. These photographs are portraits, but the subject of each image never showed up. Maybe they didn’t need to. Who is sleeping in the car with the pink blanket covering the window? The stones on the street bear scars, as do the broken marble statues filling the museums. The all have their stories to tell. Perhaps these images can start a dialogue. Rome, Naples, Bari, Palermo and so many points in between. My family blood sprung from the earth here...somewhere...long ago. And I may have left some of my own behind. Retracing my steps, jogging my memory. Maybe it was it all a dream.