Between hills, forests, and flowers is where my grandmother grew up. After the death of her mother and the never solved murder of her father, in those same hills, she found herself having to depart, leaving behind not only her home but also her youth.

I grew up mythicising her stories from those places, where long, hard days of physical labour could not harden their souls. Instead, what always remained was gratitude for life.

More than sixty years after the murder, I returned to the places of her childhood, walking through the same forests, inhabited by the last and only witnesses. I give voice to the landscape that shaped my grandmother as a person, and the people who live in the almost empty nearby villages. In doing so, a deep affection for those places grew in me.

This project wants to bring personal history to light, serving as a witness while carrying the weight of both personal and collective memory. Through photography, I examine and research how untold stories model our sense of belonging, and how my grandmother found peace through forgiveness, something often overlooked.

Only the flowers, trees, sticks, and stones still preserve within them the truth. They are the same flowers, trees, sticks, and stones that allowed me to understand her resilience and strength, which I have admired all my life.

2024 | Graduation Show, Royal Academy of Art The Hague

Enrico Carpi