The first thing that comes to mind when talking about Bugatti is the great car that was designed but also created and assembled here, in the Campogalliano factory, commissioned and built by Romano Artioli 30 years ago.

This site-specific work, bodies, traces, and grays arises mainly for two reasons: the first is the desire to take a journey into the bowels of the disused factory, to see and touch the wounds, the "traces" that time has left on the "body" and what effects these have caused on the factory itself; the second reason is to find a meeting point, a contact, an internal dialogue between the memory of this place and my presence inside.

The physical traces become images of the past, where collective memory of those who created and participated in the life of the Bugatti factory. The seriality of the photos, the square shape, and the use of black and white help focus on the details of this place where the human presence is a faded memory.

Despite the abandonment and the ongoing work of time, this continues to be the place of the Bugatti myth, not only for car lovers but also for the story itself, which Bugatti itself represented and continues to represent.

© Paolo Munari Mandelli