This is an unpublished project premiered today on C41 Magazine.
Greta Stella is a Milan based photographer. She started taking photographs at 14 thanks to her grandfather’s analog camera, which is still her favorite medium to tell stories. Storytelling and reportage are what she has always chosen to express herself and to pursue her relentless research on humans and the essence of life. Greta’s photo- projects are focused on human and social issues.
She spent the last year traveling in Canada, working on a long term project about Native language.
With her last work, a daily reportage of a small seat of the Italian Red Cross during the COVID-19 epidemic, she has been awarded with the title of Knight of The Italian Republic.
About ‘Waiting for the Waves’ – words by Greta Stella:
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Norther Italian regions have been the worst affected in the country by the virus. Liguria has been the 4° most affected region, proportionally to its population and its availability in hospital facilities. This region is the main seaside destination of Norther Italy, due to its proximity to the big cities like Milan, the hardest hit of all during the emergency.
In this summer season, Liguria is one of the most strategical and at the same time problematic Italian region for the development of new COVID-19 flows and for the country’s recovery. Beach resort workers have been the first who had to face the re-opening according to safety standards and social distancing in one of the smallest Italian regions, that hosts every summer thousands of tourists, many of whom come this year from the main Red Zones of the pandemic.
They started workin in early May, a month late than usual, in a complete uncertainty about when and how to re-open, unaware of what type of wave they should have expected. Beach resorts have been build with almost the half of the stations, needing to maintain safety distances. A lot of services for the customers have been created for the first time.
The current restrictions, especially those ones about distance and space, are making tourism workers rethink not only the idea of beach, but their entire idea of Tourism, based, until today, on the inappropriate and extreme use of space, that have made this region “the land with no space”.
