Where Are You Now?

Where are you now? is a meditation on the impact of loss, the nature of memory and the passage of time. It is the research of my mother Emanuela, died when I was two, and an attempt to meet her and to feel her and her memory a little closer.

“I aldready know this place!”

It was the summer of 2022 when I had one of the most powerful déjà-vu of my life while visiting the Basil of St. Francis in Assisi, Italy. While observing the western façade, I recognised the place where a photograph of my mother Emanuela, dead of cancer when I was 2 y.o., was taken. Once back home, I explored our family archive and mapped down all the places she had visited.

Fifty years after her, I started retracing my mother's footsteps through Europe, aiming to weave a connection with her and the places she visited, to see the world as she had seen it and to understand a bit of the person she had been. To see the world through her eyes, sometimes I began to impersonate her, placing myself in the same spot where she had stood and gazing out at the same vistas she had seen. Sometimes, I portrayed myself in the act of photographing the place where she had stood, in an attempt to make visible one of the very essence of vernacular photography: photography as an act of love. 

I realised that the places my mother had visited had changed, but they retained a sense of their former selves, enough to evoke a sense of continuity and connection. Thus, the question is: what is the role of physical places in the process of memory building and retention? Do the streets and monuments my mother had seen and touched still carry an imprint of her presence, a glimpse of her?

"Where Are You Now?" is a meditation on the impact of loss, the nature of memory and the passage of time, both in the lives of people and the places they inhabit. It is not only a personal journey of discovery but also a meditation on the power of photography to bridge the gaps between past and present, create tension between them, preserve and transform memory.