9 years after the earthquake that disfigured L’Aquila, the whole of Italy, the book The Hands Of The City by Claudia Pajewski tells the story of the city of L’Aquila, exploring the transformation of spaces and facades, through faces, looks and hands of men from a thousand different places, from dawn to dusk to its reconstruction.
“The hands of the city” is the book of Claudia Pajewski Italian photographer, about the reconstruction of L’Aquila after the earthquake that on April 6th 2009 brutally changed its face. Through his camera, Claudia tells the work of thousands of men, thousands of hands, to rebuild the homes and the souls, from the brutality distruction of the nature. The hands, the deep looks bounded by the dark dephts of the buildings and the courtyards, which have to all to be rebuilt; the faces, lit up by the clear light that is typical of the city and of Claudia’s, being both direct and coy; the bodies wrapped in heavy coats and heads with cozy frames, framed by the infinite and rigid geometries of scaffolding.
Through the lens, Claudia Pajewski show us a city that relives and resounds of voices. These men arrive at dawn and leave at sunset, most of them have left other countries, other lands, to come and rebuild an ancient city from scratch. These men will not only have rebuilt new walls and houses, roads, buildings, churches and monuments; they will have sown back together a city, the one told in these photos.
