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TRAMEMORIA
Arcolaio, 2024
Photo: 40mirrors/Raffaella Quaranta Sebastian Spiegelhauer
In the last twelve years in Salento, 21 million olive trees have been infected by Codiro, the Rapid Olive Tree Drying Complex, caused by Xylella fastidiosa, considered one of the 20 most dangerous plant pathogens in the European Union, in coaction with other microorganisms. The Xylella disaster has been environmental, economic, territorial and cultural, but above all it has been human, because behind the pathogen's action lies human responsibility: the salinisation of the soil and aquifers with the consequent decline in organic matter and lowering of soil biodiversity and fertility, to which we must add pollution, erosion and climate change in general, which, it has been found, favour the spread of both the Xylella bacterium and fungi.
Tramemoria was born out of the urgency and sense of responsibility and the desire to ensure that silence does not fall on this dramatic story that has altered an entire territory and its identity.
The blanket, a metaphor of silence in its action of covering, is assigned the antithetical function of unveiling, bringing to light a tale of suffering of a wounded territory.
Tramemoria is the means to give voice to the olive trees that are disappearing, to give strength to the warning about the risk of desertification, the consequent abandonment of agricultural activities, and the inevitable unlivability of these windswept territories, and more generally about man's being on earth.
