The Plant
2021 - Ongoing

The Plant is an ongoing project, which collects photographs shot in the vicinity of several energy production plants, creating a composite image of a potentially existing but unspecified place. Even the temporal and historical references are completely suspended and indefinable: the only certainty is that we are in the moment of transition between day and night. The Plant is the organic and natural material, but it is also the powerhouse. These two opposites invade all pictures. The images are often baffled by elements of friction, such as over and under-exposed parts, and the gaze is almost constantly hindered. Walls, grids, fences, barbed wire or plants and shrubs mark a boundary that cannot be crossed and prevent the viewer from seeing – or maybe we’re hiding – as if the ultimate subject of the pictures is the impossibility of vision itself. The use of the flash here acts as the glow of an explosion, illuminating the microcosm in front of the camera, almost like we were caught in the middle of the shock wave. 

The latest geopolitical events are sadly confirming how relevant the energy supply issue is. It is capable of influencing international balances, directing government decisions, and dictating war policies. The power that man has learned to unleash and to control through science, engineering and architecture also reminds us of catastrophic events of the past and of possible future military escalations, the threat of which we must live with and whose consequences are hard to imagine. The issues of the importance of the ecological transition and of the energy production e are of utmost urgency in the contemporary debate. The feeling of anxiety is increasingly widespread in the new generations, the questions are many and the answers uncertain. Trying to look into and beyond these dramatic horizons becomes an increasingly urgent need.