Description
Solastalgia is a form of homesickness one gets when one is still at home, but the environment is changed.
Combining fictitious storytelling and poetic photography, Solastalgia sheds light on an increasingly urgent environmental issue affecting the archipelago of 118 islands that make up the city of Venice, Italy.
Venice is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and the European city most under threat from the impact of climate change. Its buildings and fragile foundations are progressively eroded by rising global sea-levels, land subsidence, frequent high tides, and maritime pollution caused by hulking cruise ships. In the past hundred years the water level has risen by nearly 30cm (12in) – sparking ‘extreme concern’ from the UNESCO World Heritage Committee in 2016.
Written in the voice of Venice – a city deserted by its inhabitants and sinking gradually into oblivion – this emotive book recalls its former life of grandeur and speculates on the outcome of its worsening predicament. Photographs are made from film negatives that lay soaking for weeks in the same Adriatic seawater that is actively deteriorating and swallowing the city.
Design by Roberta Donatini
The Author
Marina Vitaglione is a photo researcher, photographer and journalist from France.
She is a former fellow at Fabrica communication research centre in Treviso, Italy (2016-2017) and has an MA in Documentary Photography and Photojournalism with Distinction from London College of Communication. She currently works with Panos pictures as a commissioning editor.
www.marinavitaglione.com
Reviews + Press
“One of those rare projects which combines creative concept with urgency of subject, and where all elements exist in a brilliant balance.” – Lewis Bush
“A really great concept and perspective – The photography is beautiful, and the text very powerfully pulls the work together to connect with the subject on an emotional level.” – Mandy Barker
“[The text] in combination with sea stained imagery situates the complex issue of climate change inside a poetic narrative, creating space for viewers to contemplate what it is like to experience loss in the wake of an environmental disaster.” – Julia Bennett, Lenscratch
“A beautiful book of a fine body of work, and an important global issue. I’m very pleased to have my own copy before it’s too late.” – Tracy Homer
See more:
Feature Portfolio, Cover image in Berlin Quarterly Issue 8
Review on Lenscratch
The Eye of Photography (En) / L’Oeil de la Photographie (Fr)
Special Notes
Print Edition available!
*Fotobokfestival Oslo 2021 Featured Selection, ‘Photography and Words’ theme – books with a strong relationship between image literary text
*TOP 20 RECOMMENDED PHOTOBOOKS from UNSEEN Amsterdam Book Market 2018, selected by Richard Sporleder of Café Lehmitz, Cologne
* Featured in WANTED CREATIVITY, Fabrica Circus at Fondamenta sant’Anna 994, Castello, Venice, 24 May – Sept 2018
* Photoeye #5 Weekly Bestseller – for Week ending 21 October 2017 – Newsletter
Solastalgia is held in the following collections:
AGO Edward P. Taylor Library & Archives (Toronto, CA)
École Nationale Supérieure de la Photographie (Arles, FR)
Duke University – Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library
Fabrica Library (Catena di Villorba, IT)
Fundación Foto Colectania (Barcelona, ES)
Hellenic Centre for Photography (Athens, GR)
Library of the Complutense University of Madrid (ES)
Massey University Library (NZ)
New York Public Library (USA)
Officine Fotografiche (Rome, IT)
Tate Library & Archive (London, UK)
Tufts University Library (MA, USA)
