Tassita – An ancient Sicilian wood

When I finally realised that it was the Italian coast what I was seeing from the airplane, flying back home from England last August, I felt happy, free from all the stress (or at least part of it) accumulated in the previous months. The sea was again before my eyes, and soon after were my parents, my brother, left one year ago unware of all the things that the near future would bring. I spent some great time at home, enjoying my mornings at the beach, the hours swimming, the afternoons reading and writing, and alongside these idyllic moments, I also had the chance to explore areas of Sicily I did not yet know. Among the places visited, there is one which now holds a special place in my heart and that I want to show you: the Tassita wood. Located inside the Nebrodi Natural Park (north-eastern Sicily), the Tassita is the only wood left in Sicily with a predominance of Taxus baccata and some of the oldest trees in the island (between 500 and 700 years old). A natural marvel that I did not expect and filled my soul with joy! Like a child, surprised by everything, I walked around this fairy world where wild cyclamens were sleeping in the shadow of some big limestock rocks and the herbaceous vegetarion, the mosses, the heaps of leaves seemed to hide spirits belonging to a lost time. The fact that no one was around, except for me and my family, increased all these feelings and made me stop over and over just to admire what was around me, and listen to the voice of the trees, of the hidden birds, and the light wind. I was at peace and I felt blessed to be so generously embraced my mother nature.

Last days of winter

“Those slight words and looks and touches are part of the soul’s language; and the finest language, I believe, is chiefly made up of unimposing words, such as “light,” “sound,” “stars,” “music”—words really not worth looking at, or hearing, in themselves, any more than “chips” or “sawdust.” It is only that they happen to be the signs of something unspeakably great and beautiful. I am of opinion that love is a great and beautiful thing too, and if you agree with me, the smallest signs of it will not be chips and sawdust to you: they will rather be like those little words, “light” and “music,” stirring the long-winding fibres of your memory and enriching your present with your most precious past.” George Eliot

From another beautiful collaboration with dancer and model Hanna Lyn Hughes (she is also an amazing make up artist)!

©2017 Flavia Catena

 

Dreamless

I am stuck under my dreams, so down that I cannot even see them, as I used before, so far in time that I cannot touch them when they fly before my eyes. It is still night when the sun rises. Behind the eyelids a shadow swings and guides my body ahead.

©2017 Flavia Catena

Model: Mariarita A.

 

 

 

Arbor

When I was a child I spent hours playing and reading next to an old tree of my parents’ garden. That place had something magic for me; the shadow cast by the leaves in those summery afternoons felt me protected. It was like being embraced by a grandfather, and I did not know any of my grandfathers. That’s why trees are an essential presence in my photographs. Here again I want to celebrate their strong and protecting beauty.

Model: Anna Wrobel

©2015 Flavia Catena

Irma

She was walking on a silent path, in the forest. Spring still looked so far from there. Arid bushes, bare trees; a thorn hunted her hand as she tried to pick a blossom up from a branch. The light of the clouds made her eyes almost cry, and yet it was close to rain. When the wind raised and everything around started to shake and swing, she stopped for a moment. There were rabbits running to their burrows, birds flying to their high builded nests; she looked at them and smiled. It was the time to take a breath and to wait for the end of the storm.

Thanks a lot to my model Irma Benitez.

©2015 Flavia Catena

Blu inverno

Blue is the winter, blue is the sun that pierces the trees, blue is the blurred background of the sky, the silent flock, blue are the eyes looking beyond the leaves.

Many thanks to my model, Agnese Bissi, for being so brave in the cold and so helpful!

©2014 Flavia Catena

Pandora’s box

“Only Hope was left within her unbreakable house,
she remained under the lip of the jar, and did not
fly away.” Hesiod, Works and Days

Memories are the evils of a suffering heart.

Model: Hannah Zainuddin

©2014 Flavia Catena

 

My secret sorrow

“What is the meaning of life? That was all – a simple question; one that tended to close in on one with years. The great revelation had never come. The great revelation perhaps never did come. Instead there were little daily miracles, illuminations, matches struck unexpectedly in the dark.” To the lighthouse, Virginia Woolf.

Model: Dovile Ciapaité

©2014 Flavia Catena

The end of a dream

“Dreams get broken sometimes. She wanted to dance, she only wanted to dance, but she had to bury her ballet shoes in the shadows. She still smells the flowers of the field where she said goodbye to the past.”

A big thanks to the model Cara, the best ballerina I could work with for this project.

©2014 Flavia Catena