“When we look at the world, we do it with the awareness of carrying out an action towards what’s in front of us. For this reason we travel, visit museums and even return to the same places sometime after.

What we are looking at stops before us with a call, asking for an undetermined waiting time that comes with a simple assumption: we can’t have enough of it.

Being in that room, on that beach or sitting on that bench right at that moment is both the result of a decision that led to a circumstance but also to a circumstance that flowed into an action. For some reason, obvious or not, we are there, listening. The way in which this happens is dictated by personal variables that push us to take a stand and to play a role, for which we have a conscious view of what is happening before us, trivially the flow of things, while forgetting everything that’s behind us. It may happen for a very long time or just for a second, but it happens all the time.

But how’s the world behind us? Who is watching us while we are living that moment? How does the visual field appear with us in the middle? These are the thoughts that come to mind while I’m shooting, portraying someone who is aware of what is in front of him but has no consciousness of what he’s producing by being there, in that exact moment. It is as if, in his distraction, he’s unconsciously posing, waiting to create radiant scenes with the surrounding environment of life that soon then runs away, with its own thoughts in motion.

Then the landscape transforms itself and takes away the presence of my model, as if it had no more memory. Maybe it will wait for others, ready to adopt a new and unique role that I won’t be able to shoot.”


Photography: Giulia De Marchi (@giulia.demarchi) giuliademarchi.com