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The Presena Glacier – located on the border between Lombardy and Trentino-Alto Adige – has been dying for decades, melting under the heat of the sun whose rays are becoming increasingly intense due to global warming.
Francesco Merlini‘s (whom we mentioned earlier) Cloth project aims to document the glacier’s slow but inevitable death. In an attempt to address this enormous disaster, the future impact of which is still uncertain, efforts are being made to save this majestic giant through an operation of impressive scale.
To try to reduce the heat of the sun’s rays and protect the glacier from further melting, since 2008, its slopes have been covered with geotextile sheets. Made from polyester and polypropylene fibers, each 25 meters long and 2 meters wide, these sheets are laid on the glacier to reflect sunlight and protect the underlying layers of snow and ice from heat and ultraviolet rays.
The sheets are placed in June and removed in September by skilled workers who, moving like tightrope walkers on the ice, unroll and sew these enormous covers together.
“Still synthetic waves, patches of futurism that break the rocky uniformity of a familiar landscape. The proportions of this celestial scene are suggested only by the silhouette of a human figure entering the frame, resembling a broken pixel on a screen. While the shield hides and protects a gigantic source of life and concern, the question of its effectiveness looms like vultures circling an imminent feast.”
Francesco’s images highlight these sheets, which, wrapping the glacier like an immense Christo-style installation (in 2021, volunteers wrapped the famous Arc de Triomphe in a posthumous work by the renowned artist), transform nature into a lunar landscape. A nature that, at times, escapes human control, allowing a shining snow to materialize and express its cry of pain. Silent waves of tactile fibers envelop a decaying landscape, a tribute to Burri, in his exaltation of a dense, desperate, informal materiality. Here, where materials lose their identity and acquire new meanings. The art of questioning everything, art as a mission and a hymn to life, art to denounce climate change with its floods, droughts, desertification, and the melting of glaciers. Cloth, an ode to the Presena Glacier.
The melting of glaciers shows no sign of slowing down, proceeding at an ever-accelerating pace. As revealed by a recent study from the University of Leeds, published in Nature, Alpine glaciers are melting six times faster than in the 1990s. The first geotextile sheets were installed in the Swiss Alps in 2004, and they are now used at over a dozen sites in Italy, France, Austria, and Germany.
Francesco Merlini – born in Aosta, lives and works in Milan – after earning a bachelor’s degree in industrial design at the Politecnico di Milano, dedicated himself entirely to photography, focusing primarily on long-term personal projects and editorial work, always seeking a connection between his documentary background and a strong interest in metaphor and symbolism. His images have been published in major magazines and newspapers worldwide, and his latest book Better in the Dark than His Rider was published in 2023 by Depart Pour l’Image. In 2021, he released The Flood, published by Void. Francesco teaches documentary photography at the IIF – Istituto Italiano di Fotografia in Milan and the Spazio Tempo School in Bari, and regularly participates as a guest instructor in workshops, masterclasses, and portfolio reviews organized by photography schools, festivals, and associations.
