marco delogu

lugoland

I arrive in Lugo on a cold, sunny day and go straight to the airport. I arrive in one place via it’s symbol: the legendary Francesco Baracca. I’ve always worked on projects that concern me personally: in the closing days of 2008 I was in Tuscany, looking to continue my ‘Nature Bianche’ project by putting a bit of colour on it, and I followed the sun into a wood that had been familiar to me but wasnow a clearance: it was just sun, a few trees, and a sky of uniform white. Arriving in Lugo, I imagine Baracca flying in a blank sky with a black sun. And then I discover an immediate familiarity with the place, wich seems to me a little like a horse racing track, and afterwards I discover that the earliest aviators all came from a background in the cavalry. In 2008 I flew again after a long break, I continued horse riding, and I discover pure whiteness in my photographs.
On 3 january 2008 I began my ‘Natures’ series with the photo of a footpath; exactly one year later, on 3 january 2009, I was at Lugo flying club, and the following day I was searching for the blank sky and the black sun around the monument of Baracca. I return to Rome and for the first time I learn that a great-aunt of mine, Ghinozzi, was from Lugo. A sense of familiarity, colour, whiteness, wide open space, freedom: there’s a reason for everything.

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