(UN)VAXXED: a photographic survey

“Some people who come to the clinic tremble for the whole time of the visit, they are terrified of getting vaccinated, and it's not the fear of the needle but the vaccine”. These are the words of my mother, a nurse in the adult vaccination department at Ramazzini hospital in Carpi. Her testimonies, although trivial, have always struck me, both because I was curious to know her work, and both because I wondered how it was possible that, even today, some people would continue to oppose the use of vaccines, questioning their safety.

This is how I decided to show a glimpse of the Italian reality on the issue of vaccinations, without dividing the subject into two opposing factions (Novax and Provax), but rather trying to deepen the different shades of truth that revolve around it. Since 2017, the year of the introduction of the Lorenzin Decree, making ten major vaccines compulsory, there have been many protests throughout Italy. With the Coronavirus pandemic, the issue of vaccination has returned to public opinion, fuelling old protests, and attracting the interests of pharmaceutical companies in the running for a vaccine.

From the very beginning I realized that, to properly deal with such a topic I had to look at reality from above, without taking a position and without judging anyone. This photo investigation, which began in December 2019, brought me into contact with researchers, scientists, companies, sportsmen, families, children, directors, lawyers, soldiers, and many other people from various parts of Italy, of all ages and social backgrounds, because vaccines affect all of us and our health. Looking at the photos and reading the stories of its protagonists, (UN)VAXXED leaves the choice to the reader, exactly as the title does: Vaxxed or Unvaxxed?