Say something about yourself?
 

I’m an Italian documentary photographer and my works are published by major magazines and media outlets, such as Vogue, Newsweek, The New York Times, Vanity Fair, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, Der Spiegel, D-La Repubblica, and so on.

In parallel with my work for media outlets I pursue also more personal and sometime intimate projects, that have been exhibited and screened in galleries, institutions and International festivals such as Athens Photo Festival, Fotografia Europea, Les Rencontres d’Arles, Photo Kathmandu, Format19, Photo Open Up, Verzasca Foto Festival, and many more.

I collaborate with museums and institutions, I’m co-curator of JEST, independent space for photography in Torino, and Professor at IED (European Institute of Design). My work is represented in Italy by Studio Faganel.

 

What is this series?

In life sometimes events follow one another without giving you a chance to breathe.

The news of my partner’s pregnancy; a mourning that has deeply affected us; the inability to receive a hug from friends and relatives; Italy, and the whole world, paralyzed by a pandemic. So came the need to breathe, to return to the place where I grew up, which has always represented a safe haven, a happy island, immersed in an unreal tranquility, just a few kilometres away from the areas most affected by the epidemic.

Cocconato d’Asti, in the hills of Lower Monferrato, Piedmont, here everything seems immersed in a surreal calm. And it is in this reality, as if suspended in time and space, that “Ballad of Woods and Wounds” was born, a sort of rural ballad, a personal narration of a strange period, which talks about me, my roots, those around me but above all of the tension that pervades our lives.

What do you want to tell the audience about this work?

This work was developed in a very particular situation, when I found myself in need to reflect on my roots, on my life, on what was coming and on what was passed. It’s a sort of intimate and personal narration of of my bonds with the land and with those around me, a stream of consciousness, a personal ode to the woods and nature in which I grew up.

 “Ballad of Woods and Wounds” Photobook 
 

The Monferrato and Roero Woods, the limits imposed by confinement, the exploration of oneself and the natural environment, in a closed dialogue between the photographs of Tomaso Clavarino and the illustrations of Patrizio Anastasi, which confront each other, resemble each other, and overlap.

‘Ballad Of Woods And Wounds’ is a stream of consciousness, an investigation into pure places lived during a period of tension and disorientation, namely the lockdown in Italy, and over a defined period of time which, with little margin for error, runs from 9 March to 19 May 2020. Both artists, forced into social isolation in an environment of little to no anthropization, had the opportunity to redefine their gazes, limiting interpersonal exchanges and movement.

A short and intense journey of discovery, a reflection on society and contemporary living, a trace of a unique, perhaps unrepeatable time.

The artworks of Clavarino and Anastasi interweave, they talk to each other, as if they had been developed together. Clavarino's photographs are a personal and intimate narration of an inner tension, which speaks of his roots, of his relationship with a place that is important to him and full of memories. Anastasi's illustrations are a reflection on the exploration of the limit and one’s own limits, on the wait that allows one to focus on body and mind by creating a bridge, a connection, between the human being and the Nature that surrounds him.

‘Ballad Of Woods And Wounds’ is a sort of country ballad, in which you can breathe the earth, the smell of the forest, and where an almost melancholic stillness provides the backdrop to a broader reflection on the very essence of our nature.

 

The work has been exhibited in several photo festivals and venues such as PhotoOpenUp in Padova, Spazio 13 in Bari, Verzasca Foto Festival in Switzerland, Circolo del Design in Torino and more to come in 2021.