I see around me tombstones grey is not only about a physical space.
After having spent some years far from my parents I have understood that wherever they are it is their nearness that gives me the feeling of being at home. It could be in my hometown on the Lake Maggiore, that I left almost ten years ago, or where my father used to work.
As I started taking picture of them, of my family, I noticed that there was a different atmosphere compared to the feel my life away from them has. It is true that whenever I stay home for a few weeks I realize that their/our reality is becoming more dramatic every year: oldness, sickness, retirement and a general feel of inquietude. However it is thanks to this that I know where I come from and where I want (or don’t want) to be.
The title of the series is the first line of a poem by Emily Brontë and there is also another verse of it stuck in my mind: we would not leave our native home for any world beyond the tomb.
Stefano Marchionini
