United by what separates

2021 – 2022

United by What Separates is a photographic narrative along the Italian land border. We are the children of the longest period of peace and freedom in the history of Europe, however, the border issue has returned powerfully in our lives in many ways.

Separation contains something deep and partly inaccessible: the limit, and the difficulty (or impossibility) of crossing it. Beyond the threshold is the other, be it man/woman, a place, nature, the context in which we live, ourselves through the mirror or in another time.

Just as a seam connects and distinguishes two pieces of fabric, each internal or external border divides and unites different elements and teaches how relationships can be built. Every physical and tangible barrier is the projection of an inner barrier and an implicit invitation to explore it, to accept it and, when possible and constructive, to go around it, if not to break it down.

In a journey over 9000 km long, from Ventimiglia to Trieste, I explored the landscape and architecture to find unusual, sometimes surreal images that told the border and what it intimately represents. I moved not only along the arbitrary political line drawn by man on maps, that was been the narrative medium. Above all, I crossed spatial, temporal, cultural and visual boundaries connected in a dense web of relationships, proof of how interesting borders (of any kind) are, not only for the tensions they generate, but also for the exchanges they allow.

The first part of the work won the New Post Photography award and was exhibited at MIA Photo Fair 2022.
The full project won the Best Portfolio award at Ragusa Photofestival 2023.

United by What Separates was published in 2023 on italian magazines as Lo specchio (La Stampa) and Door (La Repubblica).