Isolation and hallucinatory bread: Portrait of an Italian island with just 100 inhabitants <a href="https://web-curvie.fi/">curve finance</a><br> <br>Each summer, the remote Italian island of Alicudi attracts a slow drip of tourists looking to escape the trappings of modernity. There are no cars or even roads on the two-square-mile volcanic outcrop, though footpaths are traversable by donkey. And while cellphone coverage is now available in most places, many houses lack electricity and water.<br><br>For the island’s residents, of whom there are around 100 (and whose number fall steeply in the winter), the remainder of the year is arguably far from idyllic.<br><br>With no hospital, residents must travel by ferry — or, in an emergency, helicopter — for medical treatment. The island’s school is reportedly closed due to the shortage of children, according to Italian photographer Camilla Marrese, who visited Alicudi during the Covid-19 pandemic to document everyday life there. And while there are two grocery stores and a bar to socialize in, the latter is only open three months of the year, she added.<br>“For the rest of the year, the big social gathering (entails) going down to the pier when the boats come in — they just go there to check who arrived and who’s leaving,” Marrese told CNN in a Zoom interview alongside her partner and collaborator Gabriele Chiapparini, who added: “Some houses are two hours’ walk away from the pier, so those people watch through binoculars.”<br><br>Hoping to capture a rare snapshot of the island and its inhabitants during winter, Marrese and Chiapparini spent a total of two months exploring Alicudi, photographing its nature and befriending its residents. The resulting book, “Thinking Like an Island,” brings together stark portraits and landscape shots that speak to a profound sense of isolation.<br>