Dialoghi italiani

What happens to a photo when the link between the depicted subject and its external reference is lost? When no one can no longer find the “meaning” in the photo, the photos are reduced back to raw information.

Dialoghi Italiani started from the fortuitous discovery of some abandoned family photo albums on the street.

Most of the photos had been damaged by rain and humidity while others had almost completely decomposed into color pigments. However, some images retained the portraits of family members in daily moments, during domestic and social rituals intact.

The images of the album have been re-photographed and decomposed into something even more partial. Captured fragments of bodies, places and gestures has created new memories of this family. Another series of shots achieved through a macroscopic lens emphasizes the material and the abstract value of photography.

These images represent in a way the scientific proof something happened and somebody was in front of a camera in a certain moment. They demonstrate photography is evidence of reality. But on the other side we can consider these pictures as surrealist did, as documents with new meaning, an index that breaking the connection between what is real and what is possible.

This project is inspired by a reflection of the homonymous work by Giordano Bruno in which the philosopher compares the universe to an animated organism composed of an infinite and perpetually changeable matter. Like Bruno’s universe, photography is also a substance in constant transformation.