photographer
I chose to work on Asinara because of its unique history and geography. As a child, the island was narrated to me as a kind of hell. Later, I was struck by the stories of a family friend, a lawyer, who defended figures like Renato Curcio and Raffaele Cutolo, and met them on the island. Starting in 1997, while working at Rebibbia for my portrait series, Cattività, I met a number of inmates who had been on Asinara, and from their voices, I heard the stories of the Fornelli revolts.
I didn’t visit Sardinia for many years, and for my photographic “return,” I chose an island I didn’t know, one so full of painful memories yet contrasting sharply with the tremendous sense of beauty and **freedom** felt there now. This dichotomy between the penitentiary past and the wild present defines the Asinara photography project.
You can find more background on the author’s work on the biography
