District of Jenin, north of Palestine. If the photographer had moved the camera a few degrees, the target would include settlements, by-pass roads, the wall. Luca, not as other photographers, did not came here looking for a cliché-shock-shots. He lives in Palestine, he works there. He got time. His approach is patient, respectful, modest. If you do not see the faces of women, is because they are kept apart. Here, the real queen is the Land. Omnipresent in wrinkles furrowed by the peace of work in the fields, slowly, in their faces burnt by the sun, the pride of the eyes of those who know where is the proper place, for generations, under the immense sky. Series of images taken by the expanse of space, sequences that suggest a narration: a man with feet planted firmly on the ground, setting the goal, then taken up by the anger his arm to show this land that flies away, as light as a cloud , carried too far away, behind a barrier, and that now will need a permit to be planted. Lands breached by roads, become sterile in a few hours. Astonishing gap, says Luca, from the brutality of the expropriations and the idea of time’s farmer. An olive tree takes ten years to give a sufficient return. Time runs slower for these men, for this old man of 85 years that his wife helps in the fields. Sometimes his knotted arms cannot make more, but do not tell. It will continue, to plant olive trees, almond trees, to build walls to contain the soil, and to retain water. Dry stone walls, built by hand.

Pascal Janovjak