Cesura Publish Spring Book Tour Books presentation: Whatever, by Chiara Fossati and Scalandrè, by Marco Zanella

Whatever, by Chiara Fossati

“As always in history and life, we become aware of the importance of an experience only
after it has ended. It wasn’t until years later that I realized how special my adolescence
had been; I was a teenager looking for adventures and freedom who found herself in the
midst of the declining golden age of the rave movement, with a camera hanging around
my neck. At that time, no one saw any good in us or in what we were doing, just as no one
even bothered to look into rave culture. I remember the looks filled with disgust and judgment that followed us everywhere, and how we just learned not to give a damn, because we really believed in our dreams and the alternative life we were pursuing. This spirit of adaptation, courage and open-mindedness is something we carry with us to this day.”

“Looking back to this project after years, I can’t deny that it was the freest and fullest time
of my life; but that fairytale was saturated with asphalt, mud, dust and rich in enemies. In
the end, rave culture couldn’t avoid facing reality, and that’s when our teenage dream
crashed into a wall. Surely, we all allowed ourselves to be fascinated by the unknown, and
learned to find the strength to express all that we are, so that nobody and nothing could
stop us from pursuing our dreams, whatever they may be.”

* * *

Scalandrè, by Marco Zanella

Scalandrê is a word from the regional dialect of Romagna, Italy, which means “out of
season, out of phase”, referring to people, animals or plants. It is the title of the first book
by Marco Zanella, a project carried out over three years in Cotignola, a small agricultural
town in Northern Italy. It investigates what has often been defined as “the end of peasant
civilization”, straddling the world before and after the pandemic.

The book tells of a local reality put to the test by the advance of the new digital society and
by an alienating sense of time; a place where the natural rhythm of the seasons, festivals
and rituals, that had always marked the life of a farming community, risks being upset and
lost. In this small cosmos, life doesn’t seem to be running against time, but on a parallel
track, without conflict.

Marco Zanella’s images bear witness to a community’s commitment to preserving ancient
traditions and collective memories from accelerated change.