Pardu Nou, Sardinian word that goes by the meaning of "new land", is the name of a rural village in Sardinia, Italy. This project walks through the changes the landscape of the village underwent, from its architecture, environmental politics and the role played by nature itself.
The village was created in the 50s thanks to the land reform operated by De Gasperi's government and its structure develops into an irregular grided shape, characterized by matching houses and identical parcels of land given to every holder. Originally, these parcels were used for agricultural and breeding purposes, but everything changed throughout the 2000s and nowadays the village is a prime location for those citizens who wish to escape the chaos of the bigger urban centers and revel in the leisure time of the country.
This project has begun with the reference of archive's documentation, maps and photographs from the moment of foundation, focusing on the radical changes that happened throughout time on this territory. One of the fundamental aspects of these changes is represented by the relationship that stands between time, artifice and nature. The latter has indeed begun to take back those spaces once colonized by human activity.
Slowly, agricultural practice has been almost completely abandoned, there's but little human presence and uncultivated lands are now receding for uncontrolled vegetation to be. The feeling walking through these spaces is that of a generation who borrowed the land in order to build itself a future and is now giving it all back to nature. It is a land that changes and it is also because of this that to the eyes of one who has always lived it, it maintains the power to once again become "new land".
Pardu Nou is also the land where I was born and raised.