Chapels in Italy Abandoned After the Irpinia Earthquake
Buona Fortuna’ is an ongoing project by Jorge Mañes Rubio and Gianluca Tesauro, which began as a series of photographs taken in the summer of 2013 in Salerno, Italy where several villages were destroyed after the Irpinia’s Earthquake in 1980.
Despite its ancient history, these sites have remained completely abandoned since evacuation and have fallen into total oblivion. These places have not only been deserted, but also been recently looted of their goods. Many attempts to rebuild some of these villages have been made, but a lack of funding and corruption have proved fatal for these locations. The images document spaces that many have never seen before, symbolically reopening them to the public.
INCREDIBLE CHAPELS— some dating back to several centuries ago — can be found hidden amongst isolated villages on top of the mountains of the ‘Parco Nazionale del Cilento.’ Most churches and chapels had been bricked up, waiting in vein for reconstruction. unfortunately, the barricades didn’t keep looters away and many of the precious relics have been stolen.
Given the great importance that these religious symbols have in Southern Italy, the absence of them leave behind a significant cultural void hard to replace. Yet despite their poor condition, these places reveal themselves in all their glory.
These photographic series attempt to capture the great beauty and fragility of a heritage that is inevitably doomed to disappear.’ Manes describes ‘Buona Fortuna is not asking for reconstruction nor restoration, but to preserve them as what they are today: truly works of art. The project will culminate in a collaboration with local craftsmen, creating a series of new artworks and installations that will replace these stolen icons with new fictional symbols, inspired by Southern Italian Folklore. we call this project Buona Fortuna (good luck in Italian), and it will re-imagine these abandoned places as new cultural scenarios for both locals and visitors.
Many relics, figures and paintings have been stolen from the ancient sites
A literal and symbolic void is left in the abandoned places
Colors peel away from the wall, bearing the mark of tragedy and isolation
This is the abandoned village, photographed from the sky
