Io non, I do not (2003–new editing 2024)

The project "Io non" (I do not) was created on impulse: the shots were taken for "therapeutic" purposes rather than moved by artistic inspiration. They were my personal way of expressing painful intimate circumstances in the hope that the photograph-based narrative of a deeply distressing situation could relieve the anguish or even completely heal it. I felt the need to become the very subject of these shots; hence the decision to make use of the self-timer for a series of photographs. "Io non" is a sequence, which relates a story marked by the lack of love and man and woman’s impossibility to form a relationship due to man’s annihilation before woman’s dominion and the constant shadow of a disquieting third party, which prevents the relationship from developing and inhibits all personal growth. These shots are strongly symbolic. Their disheartening story proposes a photographic language structured on the presence and absence of life, besides leading to meditate on the deep existential situation. The complete sequence comprises nineteen black and white shots.