I Giorni Della Restanza – The Days of “Restance” (*)

(*) restance, coined from rester (to remain), “the fact or act of remaining or of being left over.” Jacques Derrida’s Dissemination.)

The depopulation and abandonment of small inland towns is a problem that has historically affected Italian mountain areas and hillsides. The depletion of population in the inland areas has significant consequences at various levels: anthropological, geological, social, economic. It creates a void in memories and in relationships. In the Lazio region, where 252 out of 378 are smaller cities, only 7.57% of the region’s population (a total of 446,251 inhabitants) lives outside urban settings.
In the last years, however, this epochal phenomenon has experienced a change of direction: there is an increasing number of people who choose not to abandon their roots. Those who intend to remain and return are not so much elderlies in search of a place to die, but a younger population in search of a place where to build a new life. It is indeed young people who feel that these smaller towns can be the place where to develop new opportunities, other models and life styles : according to data by Unioncamere e Coldiretti, (the Italian Union of Chambers of Commerce, Industry, Crafts and Agriculture and the National federation of Italian farmers ) the number of young people who choose to return to the countryside is in constant growth; 2018 has in fact recorded an increase of around + 7%. However, as argued by anthropologist Vito Teti, “the ethic of restance ” is a bet, a willingness to take a chance, from which new energies are reborn: remaining has nothing to do with conservation, but requires the ability to relate past and present, to redeem forms and ways of life discarded by modernity, making them new again. Remaining means rediscovering the beauty of “taking a break””: of “slowness”, of silence, but also trying to build the future starting from tradition and experimenting with new development models based on green society and the green economy.
My project in progress “The days of restance” begins from the villages of Lazio in order to tell the lives of those who have chosen to return or stay, re-establishing a new pact with the land and animals, re-evaluating ancient knowledge and paths and finding a new way to interpret humanity: looking back and moving ahead with courage.