ELISA MARIOTTI
A letter from home

According to the United Nations’ World drug report 2021, “drug use killed almost half a million people in 2019, while drug use disorders resulted in 18 million years of healthy life lost, mostly due to opioids. In 2020, around 275 million people have used drugs, up by 22% from 2010.”

San Patrignano is an Italian long-term drug recovery residential community. 26,000 people hosted since 1978, more than 4,000 years of prison converted in rehabilitation programs.

For this ongoning project, since 2021, I spend at least 2 days per month with residents who work in the kennels of the community, where the line between saviours and saved is really thin.

At every moment residents face their own limits, fears, frailties. For the first year, letters represent the only contact with the outside. There are often human relations to be reconstructed, or, at least, to be understood. Writing a letter means finding the courage to be true, accepting one's own and others' weaknesses, breaking free.

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