Ring Around the Rosie

Ring Around the Rosie is a visual meditation on life, permanence on earth and human's bond with nature.

Ring Around the Rosie began as an intimate photography project, inspired by the birth of my daughter in 2020. This joy came amid a backdrop of global pandemic, armed conflict, economic and environmental crises, and personal loss.

Welcoming a new life into such uncertain times prompted me to adopt a different perspective: one that is conscious of our place in the world, the fragility of existence, and the responsibility that comes with each of our choices. Photography became a way for me to turn outward, with my feet firmly rooted in the earth. It allowed me to place our individual stories in a broader perspective, that of the universe, and to observe both the vulnerability and resilience of nature, its cycles and its continuity.

This work conveys neither fatalism nor disillusioned detachment. Rather, it embodies a humble approach: accepting the possibility of our disappearance while cultivating gratitude and commitment to what we have today—love, connections, and this extraordinary world.

"The nursery rhyme which gives its title to the book—and whose text is reproduced—evokes an ancient, primary memory of a childish universe over which death hovers. A possible origin would be found in the epidemic of bubonic plague which raged in London in the 17th century. The "ring around the rosie" would then refer to the circles that the plague draws on the skin. "Ashes! Ashes!" to the ashes of the dead. The child who, in play, collapses in the grass after singing ("We all fall down!") is the very image of a moment of abandonment, of pleasure, which at the same time feeds on the possibility of death." Aron Barbier