Galaxies

“There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.”

Charles Darwin

“Every atom of your body has been fabricated in the heart of a star that no longer exists, or in the dreadful explosion with which its existence has ended and has spread its ashes into the galaxy. When we look at the starry sky, actually, we are also looking at the place where we come from.”

Amedeo Balbi

This project consists of 10 images obtained by an overlapping process of two photographs: one taken by me and the other taken by Hubble Telescope. I have explored with my camera the colourful and cramped 3×2 sqm rooms for rent where the waria live and keep their belongings. Their bodies, their faces, and their gestures constantly question my identity, as the Hubble telescope scraps portions of an unknown universe, in search of answers to the questions that mankind has always been asking: who are we? Where are we from?

The ethereal beauty of the galaxies expands the boundaries of the tiny spaces and the crumbling buildings waria live in, creating new worlds of flesh and bright stars, hidden thoughts and fluctuating iridescent gases. A mute correspondence of forms and meanings, only seemingly opposed, is established: when we’ll realize that we are just a part of all that is in the Universe, then severance will cease to exist, because everything in the Universe is the same within us.

Silver Print, 105×72 cm, mounted on d-Bond with hangers