Domestico | project statement
This family’s portraits are part of a wider work: “Domestico.”. All the portrayed families are variously connected with the mental handicap world so that the whole work is intended as a reflection on the perception of normality. I have learned from experience how difficult is to provide an unambiguous definition of normality. What does really “normal” means? Who is normal and who is not? I tried to identify a border, but while I was looking for it, I realized that it could not be more than a shade. I concentrated my research on human relations because it appeared to me a privileged field of observation. Interaction’s difficulty is particularly evident in handicapped person but it is a common experience also for “normal” person. If less evident, it is not less dramatic. This tension, often repressed and hidden in public, partially emerges in close relations, whe- re intimacy and familiarity grow slack inhibitions and let the inner side expresses, free from social convention. This is the reason why I elected families as my subject and I chose to portrayed them in their natural habitat: the house. Through the portrays I tried to display the individual ambiguousness and to show the difficulties of familiar relations.To get my point I jumbled up
handicap and normality, taking advantage of the estrangement that the subject feels in front of the photographic lens. My intended aim was to confuse the observer, force him to doubt and ask himself something about his “normality”.
2014 Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Altro dalle Immagini – Da Guarene...
2011 First Prize at Fotodoks Festival, Munchener Stadt Museum.
2011 Solo Exhibition at United Photo Industries, Brooklyn NY
2011 Book Selecton at Photobook Kassel Dummy Award
