La Componente Magica 2024

Four years ago I began documenting Mount Etna with a logical, scientific approach. My intention was to photograph it at different altitudes and catalogue the flora that lived there. After four years, my gaze began to linger on aspects I had never explored before. My photographs were taking on a new form; the landscape in front of me was transforming and its scenery revealed new possibilities, while I was changing, growing and gaining a new awareness. I reached the summit of the volcano and, I don’t remember how, I ended up inside it. I sailed through deep space among planets and galaxies; I watched the beauty of matter take shape before my eyes, its play of colour and its ever-changing form. “La Componente Magica” (The Magic Component) is the metaphor for a journey I keep undertaking in the study of landscape, of matter and of myself. It is a work inspired by stories such as “The Little Prince” and Munari’s “Fantasia”. By pairing images and texts, I train myself to play with imagination, envisioning worlds, guardians, adventures and undefined spaces, and composing the visual story of an interplanetary journey. In this research, contemplating the landscape has become a profound act of connection with the earth: a journey into matter and into myself. By observing the landscape with imagination and envisioning worlds and adventures, I have tried to build a visual narrative that mirrors an inner one. Can we still, even as adults, reflect through play?