Photographer Enrica De Nicola is the Edge of Humanity Magazine contributor of this documentary photography. From project ‘Still There‘. To see Enrica’s body of work click on any photograph.
The land of work extends to the crotch of three distinct regions, and for decades it has favored the settlement of man through the development of agriculture and livestock. In 1964, a foreign element has been implanted at the center of the plain of Sessa Aurunca, going to change the habitat of those who had settled: the nuclear power plant of Garigliano.
"...the plant was permanently disabled in 1981. But the plant is still there, nothing has been dismantled yet. The history is poorly known..."
As a result of several “small” incidents caused by the flooding of the river, which resulted in the leakage of radioactive material, and given the high cost of repair, the plant was permanently disabled in 1981. But the plant is still there, nothing has been dismantled yet. The history is poorly known, and only the inhabitants of the area seem to be aware of the facts. These lands are entered in the collective imagination of the nearby centers of dark places and sick people, and the history of the nuclear power plant and its “inhabitants” became a small local legend, almost as if it were a scary fairy tale.
"...the attitude of these people seems to be that of a calm fatalism."
For the farmers who daily worked the lands surrounding the nuclear power plant, the only possible choice, in the face of this drastic change, was to stay. Some of these people were born and lived here, have never abandoned the farm life and for them this land considered to be malignant remains a point of reference as possible. On the problem of radioactivity of products of land and water, the attitude of these people seems to be that of a calm fatalism. What comes out of it is the paradox of a rural life, preserved in the shadow of a threat sealed underground, a ghost near and far that is in the earth, in the air and in the water.
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By Enrica De Nicola
