Giorgio Bagnarelli

Borca di Cadore | Borca di Cadore is a small town in the province of Belluno, in the region called Cadore, in the north-east of Italy. The village is located in the middle of the Boite river valley, at 942mt above sea level close to the Dolomites and just below Mount Antelao, along the road that leads to the famous village of Cortina d'Ampezzo, then continuing towards Germany.

The village has about 400 but the small community is in decline. Unemployment rates have increased; the suicide rate is the highest in the region, and primary care physicians and administrators have begun to notice that many of the citizens experience psychosocial stress, rather than physical discomfort. The fragile ecology of the place also implies a constant threat of landslides caused by the continuous crumbling of the dolomite rocks, which rest on loose layers of Wengen marls. The region itself also lives a moment described by the local media as a "demographic landslide", the migration of young people to urban areas to study and find work leaving the elderly stranded in the mountains.

The photographs of this compendium were taken between summer 2015 and fall 2016 as documentation for the anthropological study conducted by Professor Nancy Perini Chin of the University of Rochester with her assistants Giulia Perucchio and Marta Talpelli, and portray some of the people who took part in the project along with some views of the village. The research team has been active in this community since 2012 to explore the issue of social cohesion and the phenomenon of resilience, a process of positive adaptation to change, promoted and supported through the social cohesion of a community. www.giobagnarelli.com