VIA LACTEA

Milk farmers and producers of this images follow a story that began with a genetic mutation in their ancestors, shortly after the first agricultural settlements. A change that allowed them to tolerate lactose even at an adult age, thus facilitating their survival in these harsh mountainous lands, often cold and covered in snow.

Although the consumption of milk is not a matter of survival anymore, breeders and producers, convinced of the goodness of their product and worried about the decrease in consumption and incomes, make sure that their own people (among the most lactose tolerant in the world) aren’t going to lose this characteristic based on an enzyme that stays active only if continuously stimulated.

In a context of modern agriculture, I wanted to interpret the character of something apparently ordinary but strongly related with the identity and continuous transformation of this lands and the habits of their inhabitants. In the long winter months I travelled across my country, to observe the people who earn their living from milk production, trying to find in them the reflections of that mysterious enzyme they preserve, as a characteristic of their nature.