Pietrapertosa
Pietrapartosa
Italy, 2026

In this image, Pietrapertosa slowly disappears from its own recognisability. Mist rises from the valley and settles between the houses, over the streets and along the steep rock formations of the Dolomiti Lucane. Despite their name, these rocks are not true Dolomites, but consist mainly of cemented sandstone. Tectonic forces lifted them up, after which erosion carved them into sharp peaks, ridges and walls. As a result, the village appears not only to rest on the rocks, but to have grown together with them.

Pietrapertosa is often depicted as a spectacular mountain village: elevated, medieval, carved into the rocks, bathed in evening light. That familiar imagery of picturesque Italy is still present in this work, but at the same time it is interrupted. The rising mist pulls the place away from the sphere of recognition and tourist seduction. The image moves between landscape and model, between reality and imagination. The human scale becomes smaller, almost absent, while the place itself takes on a concentrated form. In doing so, the work moves beyond the representation of Pietrapertosa as a picturesque mountain village. It is no longer about the recognisable beauty of the place, but about the moment when an existing world briefly detaches itself from its usual meaning.