2010-03-30

Parco Agricolo Sud Milano. Rites of passage #7


Some remarks on my own approach to the PASM (Parco Agricolo Sud Milano)

In four years, since I've started to get around there, my NEF archive of the South Milan area, has grown to a 6000 pictures to choose from, but considering that I do a lot of bracketing the approximate number of unique images is around 1800. As much as in agricultural terms the area has been photographically exploited. But almost all of the works that I've seen either focus on details or on official monuments. It's rare to find something about how the area actually looks. You have to go back to the fifties and before to find something, albeit quite different from now, that may give you a view of what, supposedly, the people living there saw, on a daily basis. That's the reason why I've decided to consistently use, as a vantage point (page 5), the common person view point, eye level, possibly without leaving the commonly used road or trail. I went there exclusively on foot or by bicycle (mountain bike). The idea, in a truly westerner fashion, is that to spend some physical energy may help to get better in touch with the place. Carlo Emilio Gadda is quoted to have said, after looking at some aerial photo of the place, that it was made on an "on foot" dimension. I do not know if it worked well for the pictures but certainly, after approximately 2500 km in a four years time span, my silhouette got far better. For a very short description of the PASM (Parco Agricolo Sud Milano) see here

3 comments:

Kent Wiley said...

All of these photos from this area are fabulous Mauro. Probably one of the largest concentrated ManMadeWildernesses I've seen. I've got to come back and read some of your links.

Mauro Thon Giudici said...

Kent, in the western world, it is also the oldest. Its so old that a lot of things seem even natural he he he. For what I have read in some sense its the starting point of our culture, as an example consider that the first treatise on the social regulation of the waters use dates back to the Anno Domini 1100. There, the owners of the factories, agreed on the fair use of water in what I would call a proto collectivist way.

Kent Wiley said...

And now? Is it still being used for agriculture, or is the urban sprawl encroaching?