"PIETRAIA — An Art Residency for the Cycles of Earth and Sky"
curatorial text
Among the dense oak and chestnut forests of the Apennines and the limestone hills of Sabina, where olive trees and stars bear witness to centuries-old cycles of life, stands an old ruin whose stone walls were once built directly from the rock. Time gradually returned the place to the land: the masonry crumbled, the roof slowly disappeared, cracks filled with grasses and moss, and birds settled in the spaces that opened between the stones. It seemed as though the ruin was slowly dissolving back into the landscape from which it had once emerged.
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Pietraia is an art residency and House of Attention located at the foot of Roccantica, on an ancient terrace immersed in olive trees. The name of the town derives from the Latin Rocca de Antiquo and literally means “the place where the ancients lived” or “fortress on an ancient site.”
Pietraia is an art residency and House of Attention located at the foot of Roccantica, on an ancient terrace immersed in olive trees. The name of the town derives from the Latin Rocca de Antiquo and literally means “the place where the ancients lived” or “fortress on an ancient site.”
This continued until it once again attracted the human gaze — and with it, the possibility of a new cycle.
This is where the story of Pietraia begins.
author: KRISTINA MARIINSKAYA
Long before the town emerged in the 8th century AD, millions of years ago, these mountains lay deep beneath the ocean. Over time, they rose to form the Apennines, and among their hills settlements of the Sabines emerged — one of the most ancient peoples of Italy, whose history dates back to the first millennium BC.
Their roads, terraces, olive groves, and stone shelters became part of this land as naturally as the limestone cliffs and surrounding forests. Sabina has preserved a rare continuity of time for Central Italy: medieval villages still stand upon their hills, old stone paths retain the memory of shepherds and farmers who walked them for centuries, and some olive trees continue to grow on the same slopes where they stood hundreds of years ago.
One of these traces, preserved within this landscape, became Pietraia.
Originally a small rural shelter for animals — a caprareccia — built at the end of the 19th century, the structure was literally carved by local farmers from stone taken from the hillside itself. Its walls were born from the same rock that rises from the earth around it, as though the mountain had temporarily changed its form.
As often happened in Sabina, the building did not oppose the surrounding landscape but became an extension of it. Bringing materials to the tops of the hills was difficult and costly, so local craftsmen worked with what was already there. They did not seek to dominate the terrain, but followed it attentively, allowing architecture to emerge from the very structure of the place, where the boundary between nature and human labour remained almost imperceptible.
But time passed, and another cycle slowly approached its end.
Throughout the 20th century, many inhabitants of Sabina left their land for the opportunities opening up in the cities. Fields became overgrown, paths grew quiet, and abandoned structures slowly returned to their original state.
So it happened here, too…
For a long time, this place remained in silence.
Exposed to wind, rain, and the changing seasons, it continued to exist without asking for attention, allowing time to leave new traces and new meanings upon its stones, slowly erasing the marks of human presence. It seemed that the house was not being destroyed, but returning to the earth, the rock, and the time from which it had once emerged.
As though nature were patiently taking back what it had once, for a brief moment, lent to humanity.
When it was finally looked upon again, what struck the eye was not what was missing, but what had remained: its incompleteness, the scars of time, and the deep, almost organic relationship between the architecture and the landscape surrounding it.
For many years, the person who would eventually lead its restoration had devoted their work to the preservation of historic buildings, studying how ancient structures move through time and carry the memory of places within them.
From this experience came a simple conviction: ruins are not what remains of the past, but forms that are still continuing to change, existing somewhere between preservation and disappearance.
Pietraia was born from this way of seeing.
Not from a desire to restore the building or return it to an imagined original state, but from the desire to listen to its character, preserve its identity, and accompany its further evolution.
Every intervention was guided by a search for balance between what already existed and what needed to be added. The natural rock upon which the old shelter had once been built remained part of the space. Fragments of the original masonry were not concealed behind new surfaces. The traces of time were not erased.
They became part of the architectural language of the place.
Here, it is impossible to say precisely where the mountain ends and the house begins, where the past gives way to the present.
Pietraia does not hide its age.
On the contrary, it makes its age its strength.
It was from this relationship with the place that the philosophy of the project gradually crystallised.
In Sabina, it is difficult to perceive the world as a collection of finished states. Everything around speaks of an ongoing process of becoming, in which nature knows no sharp boundaries between ending and beginning — only a continuous transformation from one form into another.
Mountains have been changing their face for millions of years.
Olive trees grow old, split and scar, and every spring send out new shoots.
Ruins release themselves from their original function and become part of something new.
It is almost as though this place has three ancient teachers: the mountains teach slowness, the olive trees renewal, and the ruins letting go.
The mountain reminds us that depth is not born from strength, but from duration.
The olive tree shows us that life continues not in spite of change, but because of it. Its trunk may split, become hollow, and gather the scars of time, yet every spring new leaves appear upon it. It remains itself precisely because it knows how to change.
The ruin speaks of something else.
It reminds us that not everything lost needs to be restored.
Sometimes what has been lost needs to be transformed.
An arch without a roof begins to reveal the sky.
A broken wall becomes a frame for light.
Emptiness becomes part of architecture.
The ruin ceases to be a symbol of loss and becomes a space for a new form.
Together, these three images form a single thought: life does not move from beginning towards completion, but through endless cycles of transformation.
The old does not disappear completely.
It becomes the ground from which something new can grow.
For this reason, Pietraia is dedicated not to rebirth as a return to what once was, but to transformation.
Here, the past does not compete with the present, nor does it surrender its place to the future. All three forms of time exist simultaneously.
The traces of earlier eras remain part of the present, while the present already contains the possibility of what is to come.
Landscape, ruin, architecture, and human beings become participants in one continuous process of life.
Today, Pietraia continues its story as a space of hospitality, research, contemplation, and encounter.
Above all, it is a place for those seeking to step outside their habitual rhythm and once again experience a connection with a slower passage of time, where stone, silence, and light continue their quiet dialogue with the surrounding landscape.
People come here to slow down, to observe, and to restore a lost connection — with themselves and with the world around them.
For artists, it becomes a space of observation and research, where creation emerges not from necessity, but from attentive presence.
The old walls, the olive groves, the wind moving across the slopes of Sabina, and the movement of light across the stone already carry a story of their own.
Within this context, the artist becomes less its author than its translator — into text, image, sound, object, or space.
Each resident leaves a trace, while at the same time becoming woven into a longer, continuing narrative.
This is why Pietraia can never be complete.
It continues to be created by nature, by time, and by people.
Every season, every new person, and every day lived here adds another layer to its story.
Perhaps this is why the ruin became the central symbol of this place.
Not because it speaks of the past.
But because it reminds us of the moment when life stops holding on to its former shape and, for the first time, becomes capable of transforming into something new.
They say that the most beautiful ruins never look dead.
They look like places where stone still remembers the shape of light.
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