Exhibition : Fleeting moments in the Valdorcia of the 90s
Sound of Light: Haruko Nakamura exibithion at Casa dell’Abate Naldi
Haruko Nakamura, photographer, 1964 - 2005
Light, wind, earth... Val d'Orcia, Tuscany, an iconic place that has deeply charmed photographer Haruko Nakamura. In her touching photographs, Haruko expresses the universal relationship between nature, mankind and the joy of living.
From 1993 to 1998, Haruko Nakamura was so fascinated by Val d'Orcia that she traveled there many times from Japan - seven times in a single year! - to capture and document the rhythms of nature and life in every season.
Her photography, endowed with a fresh sensitivity, radiates a world full of light and captures the charm of Val d'Orcia and its splendid landscapes.
Haruko's gentle sensitivity has allowed her to meet and create a friendship with an elderly couple of former sharecroppers, Ivo and Ilda. Their daily life, still based on traditions handed down since the Renaissance, captured vividly and colorfully by Haruko Nakamura's lens, pushes us to ask ourselves what is truly important to us who live in the modern era: this exhibition may have given us answers…
Those who decided to stay
On the night of the opening of the exhibition, I was overwhelmed by all the messages, some obvious and others hidden, that this meeting had triggered. We had thrown a big stone and had to wait for the effect of the waves generated by the rock.
Now I begin to understand. The time of the sharecropping was hard, very hard, but there was still something to save: the ability to help each other, a certain education to respect from which you could not do without, a language, songs and stories, and above all acceptance of the rhythms of nature and geography of the places.
Those who chose to stay felt that the good things outweighed the bad ones in the final balance.
“Staying was a bet against time and against the world. Today, thanks to the eyes of those who come from far away, that choice is even more valuable. Haruko’s exhibition tells our story, gives voice to those who have resisted and still believe in this land”
Listening to the stories of my husband Vittorio I realized that he too was among those who decided to stay. I think that many landlords, after the sharecroppers had leftr, have sold their properties to forget problems, anger and sense of impotence, while Vittorio rode on the tractor saying: “Patience! Today I will do what is to be done by myself” and slowly learned how to do. Some of my friends who today manage their farm say that Vittorio made school for all of them.
The elderly couple depicted in Haruko’s photos, Ivo and Ilda, were also among those who had chosen to stay. They had had their severance in the form of two plots of land with the little vineyard in the middle, and cultivated them with a meticulous attention and had excellent yields- Ivo had bought a small tractor and did everything with it.
They had asked to remain in the house where they had always lived. Vittorio agreed and when Ivo was not working his field did a few hours of work at our farm.
Haruko and her family at Il Rigo
When in 1990 we opened the Agriturismo Il Rigo, Ilda helped us to welcome guests in the hours when we were not there.. It was so that Haruko met them. They considered her almost a daughter, although they could not communicate with words.
Every time Haruko came back to Valdorcia she always brought new and beautiful photos. They were all photos taken at the Rigo in our fields, to our daughters and of course to Ivo and Ilda in their daily tasks.. Haruko often came alone, sometimes with her husband Kazumi and later, more rarely, with her daughters.
Unfortunately, shortly after the birth of Hana, her third child, became seriously ill and in a few months, in 2005, she left this world.
After about two years we received two copies of Haruko’s first book, the one she wanted so much: one for us and one for Ilda and her family.
For a rather long time we then lost contact with her husband Kazumi.We just received a very touching letter that told how he and the girls had been saved from the tsunami of 2011, which had hit Fukushima.
Finally last year we had a visit from Junko Takahashi, who had met Haruko and worked with her as an editor and curated her photography exhibitions in Tokyo. Junko wanted to see the places where the photos were taken and for us it was a wonderful opportunity to reconnect.
An exhibition, a testimony
We decided together to set up an exhibition that remembered Haruko and her love for the Valdorcia and was a testimony of the changes of the last thirty years.
For the opening Haruko’s husband Kazumi came from Japan with his youngest daughter Hana, WE HAD THE visit of professor Biliorsi who had given Kazumi some notions of Italian language and Diva Orfei who in her second book "Alle porte con sassi" had published the story of Haruko along with other testimonies on the changing in Valdorcia.
The arrangement and ordering of the photographs was the great work of Junko Takahashi who with his great professionalism has been able to combine colors and profiles guiding the visitor in a world of the past to which we are still deeply connected.
There have been many appreciations of the exhibition by visitors of all ages and nationalities and we are perhaps thinking of proposing this installation elsewhere.
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I Prossimi Eventi
La Casa dell’Abate Naldi ospita le Lezioni di Cucina de Gli Archi Culinary School, eventi musicali, mostre di Arte ed Artigianato.
Clicca sui giorni del Calendario per scoprire quali sono i prossimi eventi, ti invitiamo a partecipare e a venire a conoscerci a S. Quirico d’Orcia, in Toscana.