inclement weather hides mountains…

One of the best things about flying to north Italy is the view you get as you fly over the Alps at this time of year. I have made this trip many many times and these spiky, snow clad mountain tops never stop giving me a little thrill every time i see them…except this time, when for the first time in my travels, they were completely hidden by the weather… goddammit! Still there were some nice cloud formations as we approached Milan, providing the first glimpse of recently flooded rice fields that so characterise the Lombardy and Piedmont landscapes…

stop motion from photos taken from my htc phone…result not too bad

the space in between…

…the space between Biella and Milan, the train journey punctuates my life in italy, the ever changing landscape of rice fields (risaie) is winter barren and white with frost and snow…

buried in a rice field…

Early morning walk discovery…a Christian cemetery in the middle of the rice fields.

It looks ancient but judging by the dates on the graves it is not. Its just that the humidity seems to cause everything to decay that much sooner…appropriate in this setting i guess. Had to traverse one of the many “toilet” paths to get here…not nice

drying rice on the graves…

bicycles at dawn…

Get up at 5.30am for a bicycle ride, by 8 it will be too hot to be pleasant.  Can’t capture the true nature of the sun, it is a giant ball of diffused, fuzzy orange, there is mist in the air and a heavy dew on the ground.

At that time in the village and surrounding countryside folks have been up for a while already, the request for portraits come thick and fast…even as i am speeding by on a bicycle…

We cycle to Tulip Gardens another orphanage 6 or 7 km away. It is a smaller affair, some 60 or so children all with HIV. The kids come here in a horrible state, often unused to any kind of affection due to the huge taboo that still surrounds their illness.

The place is run by a rather remarkable Dutch couple who have been in India since ’76. They show us around…i don’t take photos as yet again i find myself facing the dilemma of whether or not to photograph…it seems a little sensationalist to photograph these HIV kids so i don’t. The kids do well here and their illnesses are managed, a bus brings them every day to school where i teach at Daddy’s Home…

Map from HIV/AIDS charity Avert:

Map of India showing the worst affected states for HIV/AIDS

yet another change of scene…again…

…well sort of, coming back to Italy and especially Biella is kind of like coming home as it was indeed home for many years…and after a few days in Edinburgh living in the heart of the the belly of the beast that is the Edinburgh Festival…(some stats…{though i will spare you images of people juggling on stilts in the streets…some things i refuse to photograph..} last year the Edinburgh Festival sold 1,859,235 tickets for 34,265 performances of 2,098 shows in 265 venues, over 25 days, for an average of over 74,000 admissions and 1,300 performances per day…. ) well a bit of calm is nice…Having said that its not THAT calm…the residency that i am working for (see my current project as collaborating artist for UNIDEE 2010 and the blog i keep for them) has carried on throughout August while i was away and there is a LOT to catch up on…more to follow…

Meanwhile the landscape has changed again, the rice fields that surround us are now starting to turn from lush green to a golden yellow…below is the town of Novara, outside Milan.

and just to remind you, here is how it looked a few months ago in april when the fields were newly flooded for planting…

…and back to now, at ground level…