What is an obsession? What is the driving force behind passion? What is truly hidden behind the ultimate question that moves the world – why? As a photographer, I am fascinated by the concepts of obsessions and passion.

I have always found interesting to analyse the origin of the word ‘passion’. It comes from the Latin verb patire, ‘to suffer’ – think about the Passion of Christ, a symbol of absolute love and absolute sacrifice at the same time. The moment of sacrifice, often painful, is a recurring theme in the history of mankind and in universal literature. People are often willing to sacrifice something in order to accomplish something else or to fulfil their ambitions. Why?

Within photography, I am interested in the ambiguities of documentary practice. What fascinates me most of documentary photography is its odd relationship with the real. Its strong, cold gaze somehow attracts me. I have always found this very ironic, as it apparently is in opposition to the romantic/idealistic topics I am interested into. Signs of this opposition can be seen in my practice.

When I started, I was struggling to move away from a photojournalistic aesthetic – sensationalistic and full of strong but flimsy flows of emotion. The shift was both visual and theoretical. Instead of being inside the action I decided to become more distant, allowing a physical and abstract space for reflection – somehow hoping it could help me to understand the essence of the ultimate question: why?