fifty years

A project linked to the family memory of my parents

"Things are not just things, they bear human traces, they are our extension. The objects that have kept us company for a long time are faithful, in their modest and loyal way. Each has a history and meaning mixed with those of the people who have used and loved them. Together they form objects and people, a sort of unity that lets itself be dismembered with difficulty.

(Lydia Flem)

My parents met in 1964 at a party organized by a mutual friend and got married in 1967. In December 2017 they celebrated fifty years of marriage.

I thought about my family's memory, and what was there before me, and I tried to understand how to tell their life together.

"50 anni" is a photographic project linked to my mother and father and recovers the objects that have accompanied them over the years. I chose objects that were "talking" and telling their story, their everyday life; this because things, the objects we choose and that live with us, are not neutral but acquire meaning, values, and thoughts; they enshrine our affection, give shape to our network of relationships and to our identity. Things, far from being mere objects, become witnesses to a whole life, metaphors of much more.

The project is therefore made up of everyday objects: the letters my father wrote to my mother when, age twenty, he was away doing the military service, postcards, photos, boxes and more.