A journey of discovery and understanding, in Nepal. One year after the earthquake. Mattia Vettorello's new “slow pace” expedition, alias Frostscape, has begun.
After walking a million steps across Iceland and creating the photography book Materia instabile, young explorer Mattia Vettorello from Conegliano, in the province of Treviso, alias Frostscape, has set off once again for Nepal. Exactly one year after the magnitude 7.8 earthquake that devastated the small Asian country and brought its population to its knees. Just days before the opening of the universal exposition in Milan, many people lent a hand to the Nepalese delegation to finish the pavilion on time after workers had returned home to their families.
Vettorello's experience began in the capital, Kathmandu, on 25 April. "Kathmandu is alive. You can see the remains of the houses that were destroyed, but people have come together to start over. They know it will be hard to return to everyday life because the wound is still open," said Vettorello after spending the first few days in the city, which even today has only a few hours of electricity per day.
"What wakes you every morning is the scent of incense lit by shopkeepers along the sides of the streets, which makes it a pleasure to walk through the lanes," Vettorello continues. "One thing that has always fascinated me is the tangles of electrical cables flying overhead. These poles covered in wires that look like one great nest."
The new expedition of the Frostscape project has no "otherworldly" goal, no record to break and no unexplored place to discover. Vettorello has instead chosen a country in difficulty in order to rediscover the anthropological dimension of travel and exploration, of documentation. At a slow pace, to immerse himself in other cultures and break down stereotypes. With him, only the essentials.
The one fixed stop is Rajban, a village in southern Nepal, where Vettorello will pause to help with the construction of a school funded by the sports and social volunteering project Finale for Nepal. The rest will depend on experiences. The road, the timings, the people, the stories. Everything will be mapped out and decided, day by day, step by step.