folly

Monotype prints on Japanese paper

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Observing the Sounds of the world

Back & white polaroids

Artist book

Black & white polaroids and graphite drawings on paper

“The future enters into us, in order to transform itself in us, long before it happens“.

Rainer Maria Rilke

Embroidered handmade paper

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Through a series of verbs sewn with a red thread on ten sheets of hand-made paper, Fil Rouge represents a reflection on the themes of union and interconnection understood as affinity and relationship that binds all beings to each other and to their environment.

Fil Rouge is in fact a metaphor that indicates a common thread. It is the guiding idea, the common denominator that ensures the coherence of a whole. It is also the Red Thread of Destiny, Unmei no akai ito (運 命 の 赤 い 糸), the thread which, according to an ancient and popular Chinese story set during the period of the Tang dynasty and then spread to neighboring Japan, indissolubly ties from birth, the little finger of a person’s left hand to that of his or her soul mate.

In such a dissociated historical moment, full of social tensions in which differences are highlighted and boundaries defined, Fil Rouge focuses on the importance of being in contact with our own nature and with the nature that surrounds us. The hand-sewn verbs on paper describe characteristics common to both humans and animals.

Here, the symbolism of the thread was born from the mind of French metaphysician René-Jean-Marie-Joseph Guénon who said: the thread “connects all the states of existence, to each other and to their Principle”.

Photographs and monotype prints on Atsukushi paper

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Inspired by the idea of unity and interdependence of opposites that characterizes Asian philosophies, Ciel et Terre explores the correlation between polarities.

The work is strongly influenced by Taoism, which brings the multiplicity of expressions of nature back to two basic phenomena – flux and change – identifying the fundamental principle in the “Tao”, or the “Way”.

According to Taoist thought, the specific mechanism through which the flow and change of the Tao are expressed is the dynamic interaction of Yin and Yang, the two complementary opposites that originally represented the shadow side and the sunny side of a field.

The combination and alternation of Yin and Yang represents the principle according to which the movements of the universe as well as every aspect of life on Earth are explained and understood.

All existing forms are created through the interaction of the two polarities: Yang, the Creative, the positive, the masculine, the firm, the strong, the light (which, in the Book of Changes, is Chien – Trigram of Heaven, considered the father of the other trigrams, which symbolizes the energy of the Cosmos) and Yin, the Receptive, the negative pole, the feminine, the yielding aspect, the weak, the dark, the energy of the Earth (which, in the I Ching corresponds to Kun, Trigram of the Earth, considered the mother of the other trigrams).

Etchings on zinc plates printed on migrants letters

Human migration is one of the most controversial global social phenomena of our era; it represents an essential and inevitable component of the life of every region and country of the globe. Migration flows have been and continue to be an important factor in social, economic and cultural changes. The relationship between migration and history has always been dynamic: migration has made history, and in turn history has given birth to different and complex forms of migration.

Through a series of etching (currently still in progress) of trees and their leaves printed on letters written by migrants to their loved ones who remained in the countries of origin, or on some documents which somehow identify them, “Racines”, intends to suggest the most intimate aspect of the migratory phenomenon, the great difficulties that every migrant, regardless of the country of origin, religion, language, historical period, etc. has had to or must face, hoping to find a place to sink new roots.

The choice of the tree, in this case a Ginkgo Biloba, was made taking into account the plant species belonging to the author’s region of origin (Giba – who arrived in France from China in the 1930s – and Hamdi , who fled to Italy from Somalia in the mid-90s) as well as the symbols that characterize these two plants.

Trees have always represented an extraordinary reservoir of metaphors; the image of the tree is universal and archetypal: a symbol of life, elevation and growth; one of the most important mythological, religious and esoteric symbols traceable from ancient civilizations to today in every part of the world.

To the roots of my tree

Artist book

Texts, photographs and graphite illustrations on Annigoni paper

Projection (n.)

Late 15c., projeccioun, in alchemy, “transmutation by casting a powder on molten metal”. From Old French projeccion and directly from Latin proiectionem (nominative proiectio) “a throwing forward, a stretching out,” noun of action from past-participle stem of proicere “stretch out, throw forth”.

“The best political, social and spiritual work we can do is to withdraw the projection of our shadow onto others“.

C. G. Jung