'Silence is Sexy' is an erratic diary on detachment and desire, mapping my own passage through late adolescence to womanhood. I moved to Berlin in March 2015. Attracted by the visionary and nonconformist nature of the city, I found my-self plunged into a primitive and Dionysian counterculture.
As I explored the most transgressive german sex clubs for the first time, to portray and question my encounters became my obsession. Does polyamory fit with contemporary western society? Can hedonism solve the contradictions of monogamy?
Friends; lovers; strangers; figures: these make up the subjects of my research, as they weave their journeys, transitioning from one state to the next, exploring the ambivalence of human desire and experiencing the conflict between ego and reality.
The series combines photos in diptychs from the journals I collected since my arrival in Berlin until today. I took portraits from a displaced metropolis where the days are short and the nights are endless.
-
An unexpected stimulus begets a novel mental state, this comes bracketed between two wavelengths - between the lowest and the highest; between the quiescence of physical stillness and the clamour of thought.
-
Frozen in the act, as these pictures lay, just like frozen in motion the observer behind the lens remained.
-
From the absence of an immediate answer, motionlessness resulted.
-
A state of absolute suspension; the zero wavelength of "silence". The bracket was now opened [
-
From the Dionysian chaos, the brain sought order, rapidly.
-
The sight of unconventional arrangements of human bodies, pressed for explanations.
-
A noisy construction of neural bridges commenced, joining the new: "what is" to the old: "what used to be".
-
Definitions updated; new answers answered old questions, and new questions emerged.
-
Sanguine blood...rushed in to fill up the thoughtful grey cells.
-
What was encountered by one curious eye is now a resulting alley between two mental constructions: the Old and the New. Trapped within these brackets are impressions of a period.
-
As the mind was now occupied by red,
a colour which happens to be at our maximum perceivable wavelength.
The bracket was now closed, ]
-
You are invited to experience it, too, as you take a walk between Silence and Red.
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She enrolled into the ISFCI (Institute of Photography), in Rome, 2008. In 2011 she was given a scholarship to complete her Master\u2019s degree in Contemporary History at the Paris-Sorbonne University, focusing her studies on the raise of Totalitarian regimes. Since 2012 she begun to work as a freelance photographer, featuring cover stories on L\u2019Espresso and Internazionale. Her first long term project \u2018Asankojo\u2019 has been acknowledged by several awards nominations. In 2014 she was awarded a year-long scholarship at FABRICA, Benetton's communication research centre, where she has been the selected photographer for the Unhate Foundation - United Colors of Benetton global social campaigns. Her works have been exhibited across Europe and featured in international publications including The Guardian, Time, National Geographic, GEO, Le Monde and Burn magazine among others. After ten years spent between Paris and Berlin, since 2022 she is based in Rome.<\/p>","long_bio_raw":"Martina Cirese is an Italian photographer born in Rome, 1988. She enrolled into the ISFCI (Institute of Photography), in Rome, 2008. In 2011 she was given a scholarship to complete her Master\u2019s degree in Contemporary History at the Paris-Sorbonne University, focusing her studies on the raise of Totalitarian regimes. Since 2012 she begun to work as a freelance photographer, featuring cover stories on L\u2019Espresso and Internazionale. Her first long term project \u2018Asankojo\u2019 has been acknowledged by several awards nominations. In 2014 she was awarded a year-long scholarship at FABRICA, Benetton's communication research centre, where she has been the selected photographer for the Unhate Foundation - United Colors of Benetton global social campaigns. 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