les vagabondes (2018-2019)
This work is about plants, a particular kind of them: pioneer/vagabond species conquering all the lands exploited and violated by humans.
Soil, concrete, residual: that is the story of all the lands once free, then conquered by our species and then abandoned. Little by little, shyly, the strongest and courageous plants start re-conquering. These are called pioneer species, the ones who are brave enough to put down roots in those stark and grey lands. Unpredictable, always searching for new areas left behind by human beings, with a natural inclination for wandering, often uprooted as they are like trash to be removed: a special kind of immigrant, indeed.
I picked all the plants during the end of the last summer and then I scanned them, choosing a black background. I wanted the subject to pop up from the dark, as an epiphany, and I went for a black and white conversion since I wanted to eliminate what could distract the viewer from the celebration of those “survivors”. Here, plants are treated like remains, holy sacred relics, to analyze and to study in deep. Uncanny mementos and yet declarations of independence. The process of scanning allow me to obtain a particular kind of depth of field along with the retouching. Every image has a title (here, in Italian) which is the name of the plant and, in my originale idea, it is supposed to come along with a short story of the plant.
The title is and homage to Gilles Clément, pioneer of all the research about “les plantes vagabondes”.
