encerrados
I spent 10 years travelling for South-America jails. A different and complex world in which violence and abuse are part of convicts life. I saw, during this time, how the convicts try to find a space similar to that one they had outside jails. They try to preserve their dignity. Jails are a reflex of society, a mirror of a country for both small problems and the big economic and social crisis. The necessity to recreate their space is the only way to defend themselves.
PACO
Paco: behind an innocent nickname hides a drug with devastating effects and social impacts. Also known as PBC (pasta base de cocaina), paco is a waste product of cocaine processing, and it has spread since the early nineties especially in the suburbs of Buenos Aires and – later – in the favelas and suburbs everywhere in South America.
PRISONERS
Prisoners is a journey into Italian prisons, the second chapter after the South American jails of the book Encerrados. Prisons are the mirror of a country’s society, from small dramas to major economic and social crises. In these non-places for five years I visited 10 Italian prisons and I noticed how people deprived of their freedom try to rebuild habits, affections and find an alternative for a future that often doesn’t exist.
The Forgotten
The emotions that the mentally ill experience are splinters of an indecipherable world for them, and each sensation enters the rooms of their minds, disconnects reality and takes its own way, made up of many small intersecting spheres.
SURVIVORS
I met Margarita Meira at the end of 2015 in Buenos Aires, in the Constitución neighborhood, where she had recently founded the association of the mothers of victims of the trafficking. They gathered in a small room with a table, a few chairs and a wall of photos of missing girls, who disappeared into thin air: some a few months ago, some years ago. They all have been kidnapped and forced to prostitute themselves in some hidden brothel in town.
GYPSIES
The world of gypsies is one of the most difficult and complex, and above all they are a people who have always been discriminated against. I have been working with them for many years, trying to enter as much as possible into their complicated reality by traveling in Italy and Bosnia. I became involved with them in 1999 until 2005. Recently, during the pandemic, I approached the universe of gypsies again and found them lost, alone, more than before. When covid -19 arrived they were immediately frightened and experienced days when they could not leave the camp and had nothing to eat.
Feeling With The Eyes
Deafness is commonly considered a disease. For most of those affected, however, it is a condition. Deaf people live in a close-knit and active community that, however, faces great difficulties in communicating with the rest of society and risks isolation. The problem is not only linguistic, but also cultural. Deafness is an unseen physical dysfunction that society and the state pay little attention to or consider only a medical problem. The deaf community, on the other hand, defends its condition and fights for integration. Recognition of Italian Sign Language as an official language of the state is one of their main battles, to break down barriers that limit access to many areas of daily life, including those of fundamental rights.
Orphans
“Orphans” is a project that wants to tell the world of children without parents, of all minors who for some reason have been abandoned, have lost their family or have been kicked out. There are thousands of children still living in orphanages in 2023. This photographic work is a great journey in search of children alone in the world, with the aim of telling their stories and making a hidden universe visible. I have been to orphanages in Zambia and Argentina where very difficult realities exist.
Lost Rome
“Lost Rome” is a work that aims to delve into a forgotten reality. A tale about that invisible part of humanity that lives on the margins of the urban context and is completely abandoned. In the midst of the Jubilee, it is right to show the hidden faces of a suffering humanity, which is completely alone, in situations often on the edge of physical and psychological survival. It is important to tell of an underground world of degradation and fear, of a total absence of structure and affection.