This summer, I ventured to Italy to further my cemetery photography project. The most haunting site was Busto Arsizio Cemetery, nestled on Milan’s outskirts. Established in the late 19th century, it rose with Italy’s unification—a period marked by growth and industry. As Milan’s textile boom earned Busto Arsizio the nickname "Italy’s Manchester," the town’s old cemetery overflowed, prompting plans for this new burial ground.

Ercole Seves, drawing inspiration from Milan’s grand Central Cemetery, designed Busto Arsizio’s eastern section. Soon, it became a premier resting place, housing striking architectural and sculptural works—a veritable museum of funerary art. Post-war prosperity spurred further expansion in 1971 under architect Luigi Ciapparella, whose stark Brutalist structures I focused on in my series.

Little is documented on Ciapparella’s work, as if the cemetery itself were his sole trace. Walking among the faded shadows and slender concrete forms, I felt transported to Calvino’s 'Invisible Cities', to Ersilia, a city woven by strings marking connections now severed. Like Ersilia, Busto Arsizio stands as a ghostly web of memory—a silent monument to lives and histories spun and now left to fade under dappled light.