“When I am sitting here outside of my house door and people pass by, sometimes young too, it comes naturally to ask: ‘Do you believe?’. Some stop by and reply and we start chatting. I always say: ‘Forgive the words coming from a poor old woman, but I am like this if I have to say something I will say it.”

"Gli Stati delle Anime"  is the narration of a narration. It is the illustration of a long dialogue between an auditor and many narrators, of a screenplay in which a cantor meets many voices at a night feast, in a little village. "Gli Stati delle Anime" is the script for a staging in prose and at the same time a choral testimony of a reality on the edge: the pictures don’t give people and objects specific names or shapes, but represent the fragments of a more complex landscape. The places and bodies that build up this photographic project belong to Norcia and Valnerina (Umbria) and have been gathered throughout this past year. The starting point is the work carried out by Maria Anna Stella during a theatre workshop with and for the elderlies of Norcia and its hamlets: during the laboratory she patiently collected hours and hours of anecdotes, memories, small and big events that rebuild the last century of life of Valentina territory through the eyes of its inhabitants. Maria Anna is an actress and screenwriter, as well as co-founder of the association Montanari Testoni - a volunteer group born in Norcia immediately after the 2016 Earthquake to offer support and services to the local community. After the telluric events and the displacement of the population in the emergency housing units, the elderlies of the valley have remained isolated, without any community spaces, without any reference point, and after four years the situation hasn’t changed. Their memories and the landscape are the most concrete and faithful things that are left for them.