My photographs from November 2017 return to the Mediterranean. On 3 September 2026, MedPress — Mediterranean Press Photo published Look at the Sea on Google Maps, my account in words and images of travelling aboard the Aquarius. The publication is available in English, French and Arabic: three languages carrying a body of work made in front of that same sea.
Old photographs, a question that remains
Publishing these images today through an agency devoted to the Mediterranean means acknowledging something painful: for me, nothing has changed in the question they ask. Who can cross a space without risking their life? Who must entrust their future to a sea crossing? And what are we willing to see once those people arrive?
I cannot look at these photographs as a closed chapter. Their dates belong to the archive; the urgency of looking belongs to the present. The face of someone waiting does not become more distant because the photograph is almost nine years old.
From Google Maps to the faces of Terra!
The title names a tool we use every day. On Google Maps, the sea can look like a surface to move with a finger. Aboard the Aquarius, it was a physical distance measured in hours, waiting and human lives. This gap between representation and experience also runs through my work on images, technology and perception.
These are the photographs from which Terra!, my solo exhibition in Cosenza, developed. It was hosted at the headquarters of Il Quotidiano del Sud in December 2018, promoted by the Institute of Historical Studies of Cosenza with the Mario Dodaro Foundation. The title named a tangible passage: from sea to land, from instability to a first foothold.
People were at the centre. The body, vulnerability and the way a gaze resists definitions imposed upon it. These concerns keep moving between my photography and painting: identity cannot be exhausted by what we see, or by the category we choose for another person.
Where is the future? After arrival
The project continued on 13 April 2019 in the Cinema Hall of MACRO Asilo in Rome, with Where is the future? Dove è il futuro?. Photographs, a short film and a discussion turned towards migrants and people living in occupied buildings in Cosenza. The question shifted: after the crossing, what space remains to live, recognise oneself and imagine the next day?
I returned to that question in my piece on Ceuta and the suspended future after the sea. The human landscape continues beyond disembarkation and beyond the lifespan of a news story.
A body of work that keeps circulating
Seeing this work on MedPress in three languages marks another stage in the life of the images: from lived experience to exhibition, museum presentation and publication. For those who also follow my practice as collectors, that continuity offers a concrete context in which to read the work.
The Invest in Art guide to my affordable contemporary art brings together the career, sources and considerations for approaching the work. The available photography selection introduces works currently offered by the studio. Here, the starting point remains the act of looking: how long an image can keep asking us questions.
Read the publication on MedPress: English · Français · العربية.