Description
A man crouching in the sand builds a fragile castle, while purple tentacles wrap around him from his back. Nicola Dipinto tackles one of the deepest and most shared dilemmas among young people in Southern Italy: to stay or to leave.
The male figure—white shirt, gray trousers, watch—is portrayed in an uncertain posture, suspended between everyday gestures (building a sandcastle with a yellow shovel) and an awareness of precariousness. The sandcastle, fragile and destined to dissolve, represents the dreams built in one’s homeland: projects, ambitions, roots built on unstable foundations, exposed to the winds of change and the tides of the economy.
Behind him, an octopus with a soft yet mysterious face clings firmly. Its purple tentacles wrap around the man’s body not as a threat, but as a necessary presence. The octopus embodies the courage needed to face uncertainty: the courage to stay and persist despite everything, or the equally demanding courage to leave to build elsewhere. It is not an enemy but a companion, an integral part of the identity of those who make this choice.
The blue sea and clear sky in the background create a seemingly serene atmosphere, almost like a summer postcard, which contrasts with the emotional tension of the scene.
