My home tastes like almonds

by Alessandro Manzotti Ferraro

Solastalgia: “the homesickness you have when you are still at home” The project focuses on this neologism coined by philosopher Glenn Albrecht, which comes from the combination of the Latin word sōlācium (comfort) and the Greek suffix -algia (pain, affliction). The word solastalgia defines an existential malaise caused by environmental and climate collapse. A concept related to eco-anxiety, solastalgia represents the loss of comfort and security we feel when a place that is dear to us, a place that we call home, is transformed and disfigured by a force or phenomenon beyond our control. Solastalgia, unlike nostalgia, is not the result of being far from home, but the result of continuing to live in a place that has become unrecognizable to the eyes, memory, and heart. The distress of living in a ruined home is reflected in the discomfort of inhabiting a body, the home of a Self, now stripped of its future. Through my photos, I give concrete and visible form to this modern condition by creating a dialogue between bodies that are magnificent, decadent like statues from a golden age now gone, with minimalist, dreamlike, and nightmarish interiors, stripped of all elements of comfort. This project is a visual investigation of this novel concept, an inevitable product of an era of permanent environmental crisis which is just beginning to make its mark in the field of psychology, and that is still largely unexplored by the artistic community. The photographs, taken using digital techniques, are self-portraits or portraits of non-professional models who all share the suffering of solastalgia. Although the project is still expanding, a selection of images has been published in a limited-edition book of the same name and exhibited in France (Paris), Belgium (Brussels), and Italy (Novara, Milan).