“Maida” recreates a familiar narrative, which hides and reveals at the same time ancestral psychological
patterns. Recreating my grandmother’s life, my family tree and traumatic episodes of the family, I investigated our psychic heritage.
There’s always been a painting hanging in the room which first belonged to my dad and then belong to my grandmother Maida: a print of a painting by Klimt, representing a big green lawn full of trees, flowers and fruits. At the bottom there is a thin blue line, which has always been a river. Some years ago, observing that painting, I realized that it has always been hung upside down. From that day, for everyone, the river has returned to be a sky.
This project has been exposed at Spazio Labo’ “Unfolding Stories” (2022) and at GuPho International PhotoFestival of Vernacular Photography (2022).
I remember her smoking, smoking continuously. Elegantly sitting in her armchair, with red nail polish on, her portrait behind her shoulders, red lipstick on. She used to smoke in bed and then fall asleep, she left big burned holes on the pillows.
I remember her arms bleeding, binding up her wounds and then painting her nails in red, the same color of blood on her corroded skin. I didn’t know what was happening to her. It was just an act of love.
Her burned pans, black crusts, butter.
“Bugiarda! Mi venne da pensare nuovamente. Però, che bella quella bugia! Avevo usato delle parole molto carine, parole che avevano un buon profumo.”
(Banana Yoshimoto, Tsugumi)