Valeria Sacchetti: Journey to the Lowlands | MONOVISIONS

MonoVisions Black & White Photo Contest 2025

A road movie that tells the dream beyond the frontiers of the lowlanders, immersed in a microcosm, still unknown, in which time flows, slowly. There, time is fragmented, blurred and oniric where water has its own music and whispers the stories of the inhabitants. Family ties, my roots, the bucolic landscape, the abandoned places and animals: there in the Emilia of Northern Italy, everything is connected, everything flows and everything remains. I found a story where the eye doesn’t stop but rather proceeds as if you were watching it from a train. Tales of lands below sea level, enclosed by mountain ranges and furrowed by rivers that overflow during the winter season. The dreams of a leftist Emilia, a century ago, have since evaporated; the earthquake has mowed much of the area, the unemployment and alcohol took care of the rest. There, one is accustomed to the dense fog that remains of a vanished peasant world that should not be looked for, but must be felt spiritually. There, the souls of our fathers and mothers echo sounds of a distant time.

‘Journey to the Lowlands’ was the Black & White Photojournalism Series of the Year 1st place Winner in the MonoVisions Photography Awards 2020.