May - 2015
The intense and sweet fragrance permeating the Lucanian air during the blooming of broom flowers (ginestre) is an unexpected sensory caress. It is a wild and enveloping scent that greets and accompanies anyone traveling along the winding roads and golden hills of Basilicata.
For me, that scent carries an endless wealth of childhood memories: endless sunny days introducing summer, outdoor games, and that innocent, carefree happiness. The scent of broom flowers acts as an invisible yet unbreakable thread, capable of instantly connecting the present to the most intimate memories of the past.
The Flower of Lucanian Resilience
This shot is intended as a tribute to the broom flower, a bloom that takes on a deep symbolic meaning in Lucania. Just like in the famous poem by Giacomo Leopardi (La Ginestra or The Flower of the Desert), this shrub grows and blooms proudly and tenaciously in the most difficult, arid, and landslide-prone soils, painting the Lucanian badlands in bright yellow.
The broom flower is the visual emblem of the silent resilience of those who chose, despite the isolation and depopulation of small villages, not to leave and to remain in Basilicata, defending their roots. A testimony to the cyclical and stubborn rebirth of life in a complex land.
In my personal memories, the blooming yellow of the broom flowers invariably coincided with the end of the school year and the start of preparations for Potenza's patron saint festival. That is why seeing these illuminated hills and smelling their aroma evokes in me a deep sense of serenity and belonging.
This flower symbolizes the philosophy of slow walking described in Elogio alla lentezza and fits into the travel journal of Un giro in Basilicata.
Roberto Lacava