Stream Spirit

The theme of the series is the Ravone Torrent, a watercourse about ten kilometers long that flows from the hills southwest of the city of Bologna and passes through some of its western neighborhoods, before finally flowing into the Reno River. Since the second half of the 1900s, a significant portion of the torrent has been covered, and its course has been overgrown because of urban expansion in this part of the city. During heavy rainfall, this torrent can overflow its bed, causing flooding and significant damage to the urbanized areas near or above its course. The frequency of these floods has increased over the years due to the increased frequency of extreme weather events, so in recent years the topic of the Ravone Torrent and the emergencies associated with it has become a hot one in public debate. The images in the series are photographs taken at various locations along the stream's course, from its source to its confluence with the Reno River. A virtual model was inserted into each image using Google's Gemini artificial intelligence platform, which used the Nano Banana 2 model for image manipulation. The artificially inserted model, in the guise of a young Native American/Indian woman, is intended to symbolize the "spirit" of the stream, humanized to express various "feelings" that manifest because of the different situations encountered along its course, both in the open and covered sections. The model's ethnicity was chosen because it represents cultures that traditionally place great importance on their relationship with the waterways that flow through their territory. This relationship is characterized by great respect and a balance between the human and the environment, elements rarely present in the highly anthropocentric vision that characterizes modern Western thought and the capitalist society it is based on.