Shiftless

Hello !

We are Raffaele Capasso and Francesco Claudio Cipolletta. We’re two Italian photographers and together we run the project:
 Dead Porcupine.

Our photographic work Shiftless is the result of two years wandering around the disused nuclear plant of Garigliano in the south of Italy, not far from where we live. 
The plant takes the name from the important river running along all the way to the sea. Closed in 1982 the plant doesn’t show on the maps as it turned out to be unauthorized since raised on agricultural land. Nowadays it still contains 3000 cubic meters of nuclear wastes inside concrete blocks, part of them stocked underground in plastic bags.
When we first started this project we realized that the nuclear presence is in everything: in the empty houses, in the vegetation, in the waters and in those barely visible human life efforts.

The atmosphere is of a nuclearized, deserted place: witness of a past which, as invisible as the plant, lingers in the present. Staring at the broken caravans windows, the withered palms, the swinging neon lights from the knocked down walls, gave us a sense of inertia, of shiftlessness. That’s why we decided to express our reactions and feelings about this beautiful land full of potential, victim of man’s carelessness.
The river gets into the sea, the waves retracting show on the shore an impressive mass of wastes of any kind. For us they are symbols that “nature always gives back what received”.

We really wanna tank you for taking an interest in our work. With your help we’ll be able to create this photo book and collect our story in a beautifully crafted object that everyone can have and share.

Thank you very very much!

Our book will come with the prefaces of three great people that we warmly thank:

Franco Arminio
Italian writer and poet

Heidi Romano

Australian editor and photographer

Alessandro Gatto
WWF Campania President and Representative