There are physical places that are much more than they appear, that are capable of evoking suggestive and fascinating imaginaries. And they are often little-known but fascinating places. In one such place, the Val di Merse, in the southern part of the Siena Province, we set up one of our latest photo shoots to present our collections. Why? Because this corner of Tuscany, taken in all its details, is a space out of time. Lunar, almost fantastical, capable of referring to a parallel world and stimulating the imagination of the observer.
The Val di Merse reaches as far as the Metalliferous Hills and it is right here that you find, among the various watercourses, mineral deposits – pyrite, hematite, alum – which create unique colour and material effects. We let ourselves be inspired by these effects to set the shots for our chains, creating colour and material contrasts that, if you look closely, have many more similarities than differences. Almost as if the chains were born out of the stones or, at least, the stones had inspired the creative process of the chains. The beauty of the Val di Merse lies as much in the territory as in the eyes of the beholder who is faced with the challenge of investigating the terrain in search of details that can be small universes in their own right.
Only in this way can a stone or a small rock emerging from a stream recall a distant planet or a remote era. With luminescence and reflections that make it clear how much metal is in its natural element here and how strong its traces remain everywhere to this day. Metals therefore as a common thread, binding an object to a place, only apparently distant from each other. . A place like this deserves to be rediscovered precisely for its own special qualities, so far from the classic imaginary linked to Tuscany and characterized by its own unique charm.
