Together with architect Claudio Silvestrin, Italian photographer Gabriele Corni, created this project entitled “Apnea”, which captures that intimate moment when humans cut off their own air supply in complete serenity.

The images that I intend to catch are true snap-shots of individuals that are emerged into the specific mental state where water that surrounds represents the everyday life, the element that contains and represents the existence itself but which may partially confuse and take the breath away.

The subjects I portray are people of any age, ethnics and social belonging, employees, professionals, refugees, students… existence and different reality combined by living their own personal apnea.

From the technical point of view I realize the photos in the bathtub, the imaginary venue which I consider the true and typical “empty stage”, where it is possible to freeze the expressions of the individuals that were brought to forget about themselves influenced by the suitable condition.

I find it very interesting to portray people breathless and every time I remain amazed by proving that without breath we are forced to abandon every perfect projection of ourselves, the awareness of “being portrait” and the intensions of the desire to “be pictured beautifully” vanish completely because of the impelling and fundamental necessity to breath.

I wanted to interpret this condition like the state of “procured sincerity”, an unusual investigation terrain on the emersion of emotions and expressiveness.

The intensity, the character and emotionality of each of us can be frozen in the image which may be considered a “photo-feature”. There are neither places, nor contingency but individuals that are pushing the limits, the real condition of the battle that inspires for an analogy with apnea more or less prolonged in everyday life.

Even being completely emerged these portraits want to tell about the variation of emerged and submerged states that mark our time.

We all cross more or less submerged conditions of awareness about our desires and aims. That is why I ask every person, who I portrait, to leave me a written desire that in the poetic of work stands for the breath, the personal motivation that attributes the meaning of living “out of breath”. Subjective but universal ambitions that I consider being an essential part of the work.

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