The first widespread exhibition inside Palazzo Scammacca.

Sicily in Decay is a photographic project created by Carlo Arancio; an archive of images of architecture in decline collected over a decade of Sicilian explorations, aimed at giving voice and light to the most hidden and forgotten beauties of the island’s heritage.


The research, both photographic and territorial, points to the traces of a bygone era, to a way of building, living and inhabiting that has now been lost and is responsible for documenting places which, with the passage of time, see their fate marked both in the good , with the start of the restoration, both in the pain of an irremediable oblivion, underlining the emotional charge through photography, time, shadows and light.


A journey among valuable architecture, among forgotten urban homes, among villas and farms, browsing the interior portraits, accompanied by extracts chosen from “Il Gattopardo” by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa.


The exhibition will develop through thematic series:


Drapes and knickknacks: a pair of curtains, inevitable between door to door of every Sicilian residence from times past, act as a curtain to a series of views where the sense of the ancient mixes with chaos, experience and the few remaining legacies of who inhabited those places.


Ruins: Here, nature and architecture will be the main subjects. Laminar spaces with a sublime taste, prestigious buildings now uninhabited in which only nature allows itself to intercede.


Myths: Fantastic characters, children of the most archaic Mediterranean culture, populate the vaults of Sicilian homes. Muse, divinity, mythological creature like illustrious and real men.


Carlo Arancio, who is he?
Photographer and architectural scholar; he always intertwines photography and historical research with the aim of memory and the rediscovery of the Sicilian cultural heritage.


Vernissage:
July 11, 2024 from 7:00 pm


The exhibition will be present in the theatre, in the halls and in the rooms of the soon-to-open wine shop with kitchen, every day from 6pm to 9pm with free entry.