Com_St_2011_07_08_MostraBazzoniPantelleria_ENG.pdf
The FAI – Fondo Ambiente Italiano (Italian Trust) and the Donnafugata winery are pleased to present the photographic exhibition From Saturday, July 23 to Friday, September 30, 2011 at the Khamma winery on Pantelleria
The charm of the island’s agricultural landscapes and rural architecture revealed in the shots by Milanese architect Renato Bazzoni, one of the FAI founders
“They’ve transformed the mountains into plains”, wrote in amazement a Neapolitan exiled to Pantelleria in the mid-17th century. This astonishment is understandable, if we consider that human settlement and agricultural exploitation – struggling with volcanic slopes, harsh winds and an arid climate without freshwater – created on this island a rural landscape without equal in the Mediterranean.
Terraced plots, drywalls, gardens, dammusi – the results of the ingenuity and hard work of generations of farmers – from Saturday, July 23 to Friday, September 30, 2011 will be the focus of an exhibit, “Emozioni di un paesaggio” (“Emotions of a landscape”) curated by Gabriella Giuntoli and Giuseppe Barbera displaying, amidst Donnafugata’s Pantellerian vineyards, 40 photos by Milanese architect Renato Bazzoni, a leading defender of Italy’s artistic and naturalistic heritage and one of the founders of the FAI – Fondo Ambiente Italiano (The Italian Trust) together with Giulia Maria Mozzoni Crespi.
The photographs exhibited – kindly lent by Carla Bazzoni, Renato’s widow – were chosen from the many the architect took in the late 1960s and early 1970s during his explorations of the island, skillfully capturing not only the integrity of the landscapes but also the beauty of the rural architectures that have always made visitors’ trips to the island so memorable. Images of a fairly recent past that, when compared with today’s reality, help visitors think over the risks inherent to abandoning agriculture, which on Pantelleria reduced the acreage farmed to a mere tenth of fifty years ago.
Once cotton and barley were grown here, then olives, capers and grapevines. The latter, with Zibibbo trained in low-bush style in little hollows in the soil, continues to give excellent fruits. However, the island’s “extreme” characteristics entail such effort that we can truly speak of “heroic viticulture”, a viticulture that in any case deserves pursuing, as Donnafugata does with world-class wines emblematic of the Italian oenology.
The interweave of environment, premium products and eco-compatible development is the leitmotif of close collaboration between Donnafugata and the FAI since 2008, when the Sicilian winery restored a “Pantellerian garden” amidst its vineyards and donated it to the foundation. A commitment that the “Emotions of a landscape” exhibit renews: from the Donnafugata cellars, crossing the Khamma vineyard you can admire Renato Bazzoni’s photographs en plein air, arriving finally at the Pantellerian Garden, a jewel of rural architecture enclosing a century-old orange tree, a symbol of life, surrounded by a stone wall, symbolizing the womb.
Public Relations:
Baldo M. Palermo [email protected] tel. 0039 0923 7242267
Laura Ellwanger [email protected] te. 0039 0923 724258
