Blues
The butterfly is a symbol of metamorphosis, of change, conditions understood as moments of indeterminacy, instability in which, however, life is possible. Metamorphosis is not an exception, it is the norm; life is process and transformation, change is the very substance of survival. Change, in its delicacy and in its brutality, is an opportunity not only to adapt and transform the world, but also to cope with the unpredictability.
Butterflies, together with moths, belong to the second most numerous order among living insects, namely lepidoptera - a word that derives from the scientific Latin lepidoptera, in turn deriving from the Greek lepis, “squama" and pterón, “wing" - insects with scales on the wings. In the XVII century, the study of butterflies revolutionised our understanding of nature and laid down the foundations of ecology: knowing the secret of butterfly metamorphosis it helped us understand how evolution works, how relationships with other living beings both basis of life on our planet, how we are unpredictably transformed by encounters.
The Blues project takes its inspiration from a 1911 'scientific film', "The life of butterflies" by Roberto Omegna, a film which stages the metamorphosis of caterpillars first into chrysalises and then into butterflies. This archival material conserved in the Cineteca of the National Cinema Museum, has a blue tinted part showing Parnassus Apollo and Vanessa Anthiopa, two butterflies that fly at mountain altitudes, but while the former loves open spaces in full sun, the second prefers shaded wooded areas. Light and dark are not fighting principles, they are complementary and mutually correlated, they are entities that alternate regularly in a moment of transition, of change in which blue light pervades in a diffused way. Perhaps it is for this reason that Omegna decided to dedicate the colour blue to these two butterflies.
The photographic compositions of the Blues project seem to show a swarm, but it is always the same butterflies, in this case the Parnassus Apollo of Omegna, immortalised in the still image of the frames that declare the imperceptible change of time and space; this polyphonic composition tries to lead beyond the small winged worlds enclosed in a scale to enter a whole made of complexity and iridescent repetition.
Watch here "La vita delle farfalle" (Roberto Omegna, Società Anonima Ambrosio, Torino, 1911)
Fine art print on Hahnemühle baryta paper Photo Rag Baryta 315
80x80 cm.
2023 - in progress
