Skatepark Enrico Capanni

Nostalgia exerts a powerful force on the human consciousness. It’s a wistful yearning for an idealised past, part real, part imagined, and peppered with fond memories. We think of warm summer nights, when our problems included which flavour of ice cream we wanted, a simpler time imbued with lost innocence, blissfully unaware of all the trappings we’ll accumulate as we’d haul ourselves into the present. We pause, reflect, think, remember, and smile. It often rushes headlong into our frontal lobe in an unexpected crash; we hear a song, taste a flavour, see an old photo, and for one brief tantalising moment, space and time collapse and we’re transported back to what seems like a lost Eden.

This is the force ‘Skatepark’ by Enrico Cappani is self-consciously trying to elicit. Influenced by the works of the Italian great Luigi Ghirri, its muted tones purposely echo the contorted colours of a forgotten polaroid found at the bottom of a draw. The skatepark subject and playful pastels evoke a longing to connect to an inner child and for a time when we could fully inhabit the moment without worries, without distraction.