Monumental Cemetery of the Certosa - The theatre of memory
All cemeteries speak of memory but only some have the gift of representing it.
It so happened that the same day I was at the Bologna Cemetery there was a lecture by Renato Rizzi at the “Architecture of Memory” symposium organized by the Faculty of Architecture of Parma.
Walking through the galleries and cloisters I listened to Rizzi's words and slowly slipped into a state of deep listening.
The words began to merge with the place where I was and the shapes began to reveal themselves through their subtlest language.
The indominables like Death and Memory shone through the shapes of the urns, tombstones, stone faces and the space I walked through became a great theatre in which the great collective story of life and death was represented. Where the absolute time of memory resounded within the contingent time of the present.
As Rizzi reminded me at that moment, we are the sum of all times, we feel the sum of all times, we are here to receive.
And then tell.
