"Stabilitas Loci". Photographic Exhibition on ancient trees of Italy.

“STABILITAS LOCI”  by Giorgio Majno

Biomass, in ecology, is the mass of living biological organisms in a given habitat or ecosystem at a given time.   In our earth, trees  add up to 95% of the total amount, leaving a 5% to men and animals.

Trees are not only important, but essential in our survival on earth.

They are gentle and discrete creatures, and they are rooted in one place (Stabilitas loci).

This means that they have developed a strategy to live and survive without moving.

In a world where every thing and everybody is changing and developing fast, trees have a different attitude. They know how to adapt to the soil, find nourishment in the ground, face a storm and don’t fall under the snow.

Trees communicate between them, with animals and men, chemically and with physical response.  Old trees are slow and majestic, awe- inspiring and sculpted.

With this work I am presenting a 3 years research, on the field.

The geographical place is Italy and the subjects: “ancient trees”.

I went around Italy searching for Patriarchs with more than 100 years, from Sicily to Trentino Alto Adige. Often is difficult to find them, and the people living next to them is very helpful.

It is a slow work. Getting in contact with the tree, waiting for the right light, feeling the wind. This is what I like, trying to communicate this silence full of sound.

I see the exhibit of this project with big, strong images. I see the participants of the show entering in a new world, a “enchanted forest”, with trees hanging from the ceiling all over the space, and walking around them. It will be an incredible assembly of Patriarchs who are living very far one from the other and are standing for all trees.

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