ANGELA DWYER

From her first day in Paduli, Angela Dwyer asked herself what was the source for the town’s water supply. Water is the first requirement for any human settlement. The long abandoned village had relied upon rainwater captured in deep wells, holes and tunnels that even today permeate subterranean myths and reconstructed histories. A labyrinth of water pipes provides this essential element from the natural Sorgenti Cassano Irpino. 

First Dwyer began drawing the surrounding landscape, fountains, and closed wells, but after exploring Paduli’s hills in the dry summer heat, she remembered T.S.Eliot’s iconic poem “The Wasteland“, and searched for the Italian translation. Although the words have been taken out of context, time and place, she found that the subliminal Part V. “What the Thunder Said” (Cosa Disse It Tuono), was relevant to her own individual experience of Paduli, this winding hilltop town which was built out of rock, and without water, with its community constantly challenged by the consequences of natural elements. The white pastel handwriting on blackboard-like inked paper, mediates the space between language as image, and image as language, creating an existential field for projection as the repetitive chants lull the viewer into reading a personal meaning and memory.