Maila Blasi's 'L'uliv' Explores Family Memory Through Olive Trees

In the fourth installment of ATP Diary's 'Il Teorema dell'Anatra' series, photographer Maila Blasi presents 'L'uliv', a project intertwining family archives with new photographs taken at her grandparents' home. Blasi's family tradition involves planting an olive tree for each birth and erasing the deceased from a paper address book. The work confronts mortality and legacy, asking what traces remain when one is the youngest and likely to be the last. Blasi juxtaposes vintage family snapshots—often featuring plants—with contemporary images of the same trees, now decades old. Footnotes reveal the trees' names and planting years: Geronzo and Carla's olive raggia (1967, 59 years), Tommaso's olive impollinatore (2001, 25 years), and Maila's olive frantoio (2002, 24 years). The series is part of a broader column questioning photographic truth, referencing Joan Fontcuberta's duck theorem.