A book by Alfonso Catalano
Sarno, il dio offeso
The wonder and disaster of the Sarno river, the most polluted river in Europe.
“Sarno, Il dio Offeso” by Alfonso Catalano is a book published in 2021 with the publisher Crowbooking, with a foreword by Matteo Marzotto and editing by Luigi Di Pace.
A photographic reportage made along the Sarno River.
Europe’s most polluted river in three different periods (1995-2018-2019). The images have a journalistic investigation cut. The journey, through the suffering and now compromised territory of the Sarno basin, reconstructs the map of an environmental disaster.
It features the tomato factories of Agro Sarnese-Nocerino and the leather industries of Solofra.
There are pharmaceutical companies and sewage discharges from an area with one of the highest densities per square kilometer in Italy.
That of the Sarno River is a complicated journey in a difficult territory. Its status as a polluted river-the most polluted in Europe, according to some studies-has become a stigma, and unfortunately, no solution has been in sight for years.
Yet there is a territory, although suffering and perhaps permanently compromised, that still has many extraordinary features. Starting with a unique landscape dominated by Mount Vesuvius.
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Video
Telling the disaster without losing sight of the landscape. Documenting the havoc and meeting the people.
The book is divided into three chapters. The first two, “Of Water of Lava of Earth and Tuff,” and “Horror Cloacae,” are devoted to landscape and pollution, respectively; the images follow the flow of the Sarno River from its source to its mouth across the time in which they were taken.
In the last one, “A River, of People,” portraits are collected, all taken in 2019. Faces and bodies of women and men who with tenacity and courage continue to farm along the river, the last precarious physical barrier at the end of all hope.
This book will not solve the pollution of the Sarno River basin, but it is meant to be a way to offer the Sarno territory to those who do not expect it as it is, to those who live there and pay no more attention to it, to those who could still intervene, to those who have never seen it.
One can believe that the Sarno disaster is a local problem. That would be a mistake because the environment is a global good. Sarebbe un errore perché l’ambiente è un bene globale.
The writings of Giusy Lofrano and Luca Pucci accompanying the pictures accurately reconstruct the never-ending epic of remediation and recovery programs, of the many administrative shifts of authority that have followed one another without result.
The book includes some photos of Pasquale Stanzione, a friend and teacher who left us a few years ago. This book is also a tribute to him
https://crowdbooks.com/it/sarno-il-dio-offeso/