Scalandrê

Scalandrê is a word from the regional dialect of Romagna, Italy, which means “out of season, out of phase”, referring to people, animals or plants. It is the title of the first book by Marco Zanella, a project carried out over three years in Cotignola, a small agricultural town in Northern Italy.

It investigates what has often been defined as “the end of peasant civilization”, straddling the world before and after the pandemic.

The book tells of a local reality put to the test by the advance of the new digital society and by an alienating sense of time; a place where the natural rhythm of the seasons, festivals and rituals, that had always marked the life of a farming community, risks being upset and lost. In this small cosmos, life doesn’t seem to be running against time, but on a parallel track, without conflict.

Marco Zanella’s images bear witness to a community’s commitment to preserving ancient traditions and collective memories from accelerated change.