NOBODY IN ITALY, LABYRINTH

People prefer to belong somewhere and to somebody. In spite of this, the exercise I work with through my photographs explores solitude. I do research about ‘absence’. I look for lonely places. My images show places that we might ignore if it wasn’t for my search of vacuity.  They are nice sets where we expect to see someone, but there is NO-BODY. I take nostalgic pictures… what might be, but is not there… the lovely place where there should be someone smiling buy there is no one.

This series is an exploration in ‘melancholy’. I find beauty in lonely places. That might be why I like rainy days, they have the same amount of nostalgia as solitary places.

I am Colombian, but my last name is Italian. Although I was born and raised in Colombia, my photographic researches lead me to Italy… I guess looking for a sense of belonging. This is how ‘NOBODY IN ITALY, LABYRINTH’ took form. A series of images that invite us to imagine any possible world behind each door or window. A universe of leading paths … that take us to solitary places with out an end… a labyrinth.

I don’t know the cause of my need to see the world through nostalgic eyes. Maybe these two quotes can help us understand the feeling:

“ The day was lukewarm, but a little sad, as Sundays in Paris usually are; especially when one does not believe in God.”

Michel Houellrbecq,

Extension Du Domaine De La Lutte

“To be loved like that makes all the difference. It does not lessen the terror of the fall, but it gives a new perspective on what that terror means. I had jumped off the edge, and then, at the very last moment, something reached out and caught me in midair. That something is what I define as love. It is the one thing that can stop a man from falling, the thing powerful enough to negate the laws of gravity.”

Paul Auster,

Moon Palace

If opposites contain one another, to work with ‘absence’ is an apology to ‘belonging’ ……somewhere or with somebody. It is a suspended promise floating in the air… It is melancholy.

                                                                                                                                                    Marcela Bellini