Marco Zanella, Scalandrè, 2021

Scalandrê – a dialectal expression of the Romagna region that means “out of season, out of phase” when referring to people, animals or plants – is the title of Marco Zanella’s first book, a three-year long project about Cotignola, a small town in Northern Italy with an agricultural tradition. It investigates what has often been defined as the end of rural civilization, straddling the world before and after the pandemic; a reality that is put to the test by the advancement of the new digital era and by the confrontation with an alienating sense of time: the natural rhythm of the seasons, of celebrations and rituals, which has always marked the life of a community in osmotic contact with the land, is now at risk of being distorted 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 testify to the commitment of a community to preserve ancient traditions and collective memories from accelerated change.