Amidst the debris and splendor, events unfolded in May 2021.
May 2021: A Year After the Pandemic - Reflections on Italy's Transformation
reading time: 3 minutes
Twelve months have passed since the onset of the pandemic. The year 2021 marks a significant point in Italy's journey, a journey that has been marked by pain, suspicion, unease, and discontent.
The spring of pain: the arrival of COVID-19, a word as sharp, menacing, and intricate as its microscopic images. The summer of suspicion: cautiously observing others, from beach umbrellas to ice cream shop lines, all maintaining a safe distance. Adolescents holding hands at the cinema, leaving empty seats between them.
The autumn of unease: businesses navigating the new world order, keeping life-support thanks to the government's flood of liquidity. However, the feeling lingered that liquidity was just a polite term for debt.
The winter of discontent: despite the euphoria of COVID-19's physical disappearance and the artificial survival of an economy and society already fragile before the pandemic, we realized things were not improving. Instead, we understood that they were deteriorating, badly. Or, at least, that the phrase "nothing is the same as before" encapsulated the merging of our past, present, and future into a compact, porous, and ambiguous mass.
Now, we find ourselves in May 2021. It has transformed not just the habits and bodies of individuals, but also our relationship with the state. This relationship teeters between the anarchic Italian mask and the state of exception as a precursor for a new psycho-political absolutism. The question remains, what lie can we tell the soldier stationed at the supermarket corner as we struggle with the seventy-seventh version of the self-certification model?
The industrial landscape has also undergone change. The crisis, with its compact and explosive violence, left 12% of Italy's GDP from the previous year in ruins. This marked a shift in national productive specialization, or rather, a forced change. The food, wine, clothing, shoes, and mechanics conceived here on the metal and electronics backbone of the Po Valley remain. A year after the time of the Coronavirus, we are still trapped within it, for our civil and economic identity, Pier Vittorio Tondelli's words from "Altri Libertini" hold true: "In my land, only what I am will help me live."
This piece is part of a collection of sixteen, titled "The World to Come," a project of visions and predictions involving fifty Italian and international photographers. Each photographer offers their unique perspective and prediction of the future, accompanied by a self-portrait. From mid-May, these photographs will be on display in a digital exhibition. Keep an eye out for the birth of the project and the behind-the-scenes action on the social media of IL Magazine. You can also meet the photographers, part of a series of talks and video interviews. The exhibition catalog will be available for download on our website.
In light of Italy's transformation over the past year, the home-and-garden sector could see a shift towards sustainable living, as individuals embrace a newfound appreciation for self-sufficiency and eco-consciousness. The lifestyle of the future, seen in the context of the pandemic-induced economic crisis, may prioritize locally produced food, clothing, and other essentials, echoing the industrial landscape's adjustments.
