Simona Ghizzoni

Rayuela

Over the period of the past seven years, almost as a form of therapy, I’ve been working on a visual diary, Rayuela. Self-portraits and portraits go along in an uninterrupted flow with nature and animals, life and death. Being born and raised in the countryside of a small village in northern Italy, those elements were part of my childhood’s playground, which I try to recreate by designing an imaginary world. It represents the process of growth, the feminine element of nature, the acceptance of the organic decay. My work lies in a concept of photography as a vital experience. The camera allows me to explore the relationships between humanity and nature, the individual and the cultural, the real and the psychological. I’m obsessed by the vertigo that happens when we perceive the usual order is undermined. A slight laceration in the texture of our visible world. It’s an aged world, with cracks and fissures, dust. There are parts thin as glass-plates, too eerie to walk upon. And finally, there’s the ambiguity of objects : life and death, dream and reality, face and mask blur. What moves appears stiff, what is still seems possessed by an unsettling life.


Palermo. 2014

Me as a tree. Istanbul. 2014

Seashell in the dining room. Rome. 2013

Fern. Rome. 2013

Palermo. 2014

Me as a flock. Rome. 2013

The accident. Rome. 2014

Octopus. Arles. 2010

Lucrezia. Romeee.2015

Aquarium. New York. 2014

Alisa. Venice. 2012

Dead owls. London. 2014

The rooster. Istanbul. 2014

Looking backward. 2015

Bio

Since 2006 I work on on long-term documentary projects concerning women’s condition. My first essay Odd Days, talks about Eating Disorders in Italy and the long path to recovery. In 2010 I received a commission to work on Iraqui female refugees in Jordan, where I produced my first short documentary ‘Lie in Wait’ ( 8? / 2010 / Ita-Jordan). From then on, travelling became a fundamental aspect of my practice, and I have produced several chapters of ‘Afterdark’, my latest work about the consequences of war on women’s psychological life in the Mediterranean area: Jordan, West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and Western Sahara. In Western Sahara I produced my second documentary, thanks to The Aftermath Project (63′ /2013/ Ita-Algerie). At the same time, almost as a form of therapy, I’ve been working , over the period of the past seven years, on a visual diary, Rayuela, on my everyday life.

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Simona Ghizzoni