S-Troppo

- "Stroppo": Italian word used by Beppe Fenoglio in his stories and modeled on the Piedmontese dialect word "strup", that it means “flock”. - This project is settled in Piedmont (a region in the north of Italy), on the Langhe’s hills, the place where I was born and raised. More precisely on the hills of what is called " high Langa": a territory with thick woods and winding roads. Since the beginning of the 20th century this hills were populated by an autochthonous breed of sheep called "sheep of Langa" or "Langhetta" and the inhabitants of these hills lived mainly on sheep farming, cheese production and agriculture; this until the boom of industrialization who led them to move to the nearest town where the industry was growing and the dreams of a “new modern life” too. This phenomenon caused a depopulation of this area and a drastic decrease of the numbers of this native breed sheep typical of this territory. For this reason in 2000s the "sheep of Langa" was declared a race of sheep well on its way to extinction. With her, hundreds of years of traditions and cheese making - typical of the area - were disappearing. The risk of a huge loss in tradition and culture of these lands is existing but, fortunately, nowadays these hills are slowly repopulating thanks to people who have decided to dedicate their own life to these sheep, to the tradition and to the production of the typical cheeses of this territory. For this reason, in April 2018 I started my journey looking for these brave breeders who, with great effort, are trying to change the fate of this sheep and of the territory too, always following the traditional method handed down by the old generations. This is just a small selection of a largest, and still active, photographic project dedicated to breeders and to their "Langhette" sheep, with the hope of being able to give them the widest breath to make the history of this sheep known as much as possible. They need and deserve this. I spent a lot of time with these people and each one has enriched me. So this is a story that speaks of sheep, of men and women, of traditions and of strength of soul: everything is strictly connected here. A history of slow things in a world that is always going faster and faster: to come back to go forward.