Xolivo was born walking.
Among the ancient silences of the Salento fields, within the dense weave of olive trees, I found breath again.
After a time of darkness and rebirth, it was there — among gnarled, almost human forms — that something inside me began to resonate.
A forgotten echo, returning through living matter.
Each tree appeared as a body.
A soul rooted in the earth.
Twisted trunks, open wounds, arms stretched toward the sky in a mute impulse:
within them I recognized pain and strength, ending and beginning.
A form of resistance.
A silent way of remaining alive.
Through the lens, I tried to gather these presences not only with my eyes, but with my skin.
To photograph was not merely to see:
it was to listen, to touch, to be crossed.
Each image becomes a threshold —
between me and them,
between memory and matter,
between fragility and courage.
Xolivo is my song for these vegetal souls, custodians of time.
It is an act of love for a wounded land that still sings,
for bare branches that have not forgotten how to bloom.
An invitation to remain.
To feel.
To recognize the life that resists beneath every skin.
“Your olive tree body,
your body that is two trunks,
your body that is the only foliage
left in the world.”
“Olive trees in the night,
sing a song of love
so that the world may return
to its ancient beauty.”
Excerpts from Nazim Hikmet
