In December 2023, after several years of work, I finally finished the dummy that would become my first book, Almanac of Forgotten Memories. This process left me completely drained, especially regarding my personal practice. Until then, my approach to the medium consisted of using the camera as a tool to collect images around the world, and the process of making the book was a way to create a structure that would bring coherence to this ever-growing disjointed collection. I felt like I exhausted my fascination with this approach and felt the need to try something different. I decided to take a more active role in the process of image-making. So, last year, I embarked on a mission, spending most of my available time roaming aimlessly into a barely defined area of the Italian countryside. It is a pursuit driven by a visceral curiosity, an attempt to satisfy an obsession that I have been carrying with me for many years. One of my most vivid childhood memories is looking outside the window as we drove through these sceneries. It wasn’t a particularly exotic itinerary (the drive took 30 minutes or so), but something about the places we drove through completely captured me. As we went, the denseness of the city inevitably gave way to more and more emptiness. Unpopulated streets, vast fields, and abandoned buildings created a scenery that felt foreign and familiar at the same time, what I guess was my first encounter with the feeling of nostalgia. The photos I am bringing to this open call are part of this ongoing project. It’s an attempt to re-live those drives and to recreate that feeling in a tangible and unreliable way.