Stefania Orfanidou , Pendulum, 2019

Pendulum is the visual approach of a return journey to the city of L’Aquila in central Italy. In 2009 a strong earthquake destroyed the city and caused an open wound on its body. I moved there a few years after the disaster, in order to work as an architect in the reconstruction of the city, but in reality it was a return to the place where my parents met in 1977, to my fictitious roots. During my stay, I experienced the post-seismic terrain in a very bizarre way. The sense of familiarity I had developed in my fainted childhood memory collided with the uncanny new condition the city was in. The quake’s vibrations and its resonance created a rupture in my memory. I tried to heal this rupture by capturing photographically its imprints and its aftermath, as a process of re-writing this place in my memory, as a personal quest to restore my relationship with L’Aquila.