NAPEX 233052 LIMITED

Napex 233052 Napoli Explosion

And then there are the eruptions no one has seen. Those lost in the world’s memory, buried in tectonic strata, mingled with fossils of creatures that were not us. Those eruptions were a foreshadowing of forms, the preparation of landscapes, the waiting for the silence that would come afterwards. Then came the eruption of plant life that covers, and that of animal life that populates and repopulates. Here are born the myths and rituals that tell the collective story of the earth and those who inhabit it. They are the photograph of all those ancestral eruptions. Yet the photograph is alive, and as unpredictable as dreams. We see it awaken every year. It is the collective mind of this place, preparing each year to begin anew. Atop the geological ages, the myths, rituals and stories, Napoli Explosion emerges from the mountain’s memory and takes part in its cyclical rhythms. Mountains, as we know, can be calm, can stand still, can wait. But they carry the memory of the storm within their depths. That memory is the photograph Mario Amura has been making for years.

Serenella Iovino

Napoli Explosion

The window of my bedroom overlooked Mount Vesuvius, and every morning, with reverence, I whispered a good morning to it as one would address a slumbering person, afraid of awakening them. The volcano is a living presence for anyone living at its slopes. For over 12 years, on New Year's Eve, my team and I ascend Mount Faito, a mountain overlooking the Bay of Naples, to capture the extraordinary choreography of lights and colors produced by fireworks all around Vesuvius. Through this superstitious and propitiatory ritual, the people of Naples welcome the new year. The image of the black and silent silhouette of the volcano submerged by the cacophony of fireworks' colors seemed to me a representation that needed to be explored seriously and viewed from different perspectives. Over the years, the project has evolved into an experimentation of new forms of writing with light, using a unique color palette provided by the hundreds of thousands of fireworks exploding simultaneously. Over time, Napoli Explosion has become a work in search of the feeling of light.

Mario Amura

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