Twenty-four photographs in Bellinzona

It began as a talk. Paola Piffaretti, of the Biblioteca cantonale in Bellinzona, had invited me to speak about the book; as we talked, the idea of hanging the photographs came up as well.

The library has a tall atrium, with light coming in through a band of windows below the ceiling, and two floors of balconies running around it: they are the corridors you walk along to reach the rooms. The photographs are there, on the red walls, on two floors and two sides. Hung from wires, without frames, with the caption underneath: the black and white and its white border against that red make a contrast a white room would not have given me.

Twenty-four pictures chosen from the sixty in the book, keeping its thread, with a section of six given to the samosely.

Digital prints on Canon Gletscher paper mounted on 60×40 forex, with the white border around the image to echo the book. The prints, ready to hang, were made by eufineart, of Emmanuel Urban Studio; the exhibition happened thanks to their support and that of L'Uomo e il Clima, the festival on climate change. Hanging them was my own job, with Paola Piffaretti's help.

The opening evening, Tuesday 12 May, was not mine alone. It was called Pensare il dopo. Note per una geografia delle catastrofi — thinking the aftermath, notes for a geography of catastrophes. Claudio Ferrata presented catastrophes as the meeting of geophysical causes and a social context that often carries the responsibility for them; I presented the book and the images; Paola Piffaretti chaired. Ferrata and I both sit on the board of GEA, the association of geographers. A little over two weeks ago, on 26 April, it was forty years since the accident.

The exhibition is open until 30 May.