Hort’s Maze (Il Labirinto di Hort) is a game path created on the outskirts of Senigallia, in the middle of a large plantation of corn. It’s a bit isolated place in the open country. The corn is high in August, to the point where you cannot see the paths cut out among the plants. Many families with children go there to have fun, looking for the exit. In the middle of the foliage, when it gets darker, you can hear their voices calling each other, while they move uncertainly with their flashlights.
I had been asked by friends in Senigallia to take some pictures over there, for simple documentation. It seemed to me, at the beginning, that there was not much to photograph. However, when I started doing it, moving inside the paths, I realized the impalpable anguish that comes from a labyrinth: you have to find the exit, and, above all, you need to choose a path.
Symbolic, meditative path. My mind went to Dedalus and Crete, to the mystical paths included in the floor of some churches in the Middle Age, to our need to rely on something, even a coin toss. I thought of the mysterious technology of modern electronics, the hidden dangers of some urban areas (the Google map reproduces a district of Kabul). And finally, one morning, I went to the coast at 5.00 a.m and drew a maze on the sand, The maze ended up in the sea. The sea, very calm, ended at the border of dawn.
It was the last picture. I do not think you could say more.
