LS SUBMISSION
Stefano Ferrando - Hieracon
landscapestories.net
The project explores the relationship between man and the island, conceived as a heterotopic space, both in its landscape dimension and in its essence rich in contradictions. Through symbols, geological traces, and signs of human presence, the photographic series aspires to create a map on which to trace a path intersecting the author’s biographical notes, the perception of space, and the mythical narrative of the world.
“Hieracon nesos” is the ancient Greek name for a small island in the center of the Mediterranean. Anyone who has lived on an island - whether permanently or for a minimal fraction of their existence - knows that their perception of the world relies on an unstable equilibrium that harks back to the history of the world, the ongoing struggle between the Leviathan - the immense white whale symbolizing the sea - and Behemoth, the powerful terrestrial creature.
As a place steeped in myth, the island simultaneously embodies the concepts of paradise, lost continent, fantasy realm, blissful hermitage, and prison. It is a refuge to hide from the world and a place from which one flees to avoid the weight of its finite existence. Its boundary is the shore, a perimeter continually redefined by the motion of the waves in a world closed in on itself yet open to the infinite. From there, with a gaze toward the beyond, every potentiality is suspended, and every existence is possible.
