project
everything my mum missed about me
2024-2026
do you love your mom? when my daughter was born, i was amazed at how much love for the mother is instinctively embedded in a person. especially since my response to this question is not straightforward.
ages 5–7 are some of the key years in the formation of individuality, the age when my mother was least present in my life. that’s why i decided to capture with my camera the moments when my daughter expresses herself the most — treating her body like a canvas, experimenting with the world around her, getting upset, or simply enjoying the fact that we are together.
these moments not only help me explore, but also reassess my own childhood experiences. photography gives me the opportunity to create the necessary distance to change my relationship with the past. this process helps to fill that seemingly irreparable void i once perceived as a lack of love.
children are deeply guided by what their parents tell them about the world, so I choose never to lie to my child, even though it’s easier to say that a shot won’t hurt or to avoid the question. I remember myself from a very early age, and I remember that strange feeling of disappointment when my mother said it wouldn’t hurt, and then came terrible pain. that’s why I tell my daughter: “It will hurt, but I’m here with you, and you are very strong - we’ll get through this together.
trust
enchantment
a craft that Ilaria made together with the nanny. In childhood, there is a wonderful tendency to attribute magical qualities to any object, but for adults, it can be hard to see the extraordinary in the everyday and support a child’s creative impulses.
observation
this photograph was taken after a long day that was supposed to be pleasant. instead, it ended in quiet tension. my daughter was unhappy, not because of anything specific, but because of an inner state that had nothing to do with the weather, the place, or my intentions. what struck me was the contrast: a certain quiet bourgeois tenderness and, at the same time, simplicity, almost poverty, of the scene. this moment could have taken place in any small seaside town.
for me, this portrait is about an emotion that feels timeless and universal. it is not a description of a child, but of a state we all recognize. photographing her became my way of finding calm, of pausing and observing beauty, even when connection feels temporarily impossible
balance
as a parent, i try not to restrict my daughter too strictly, but finding a balance between discipline and freedom is difficult. strictness in parenting is often tied to economic fears and the desire to ensure a secure future, but it can have the opposite effect. what matters more: a child’s success or their well-being?
confession
my mum couldn’t stand it when i lied. she would always tell me, almost like an ultimatum: “don’t lie to me, tell me the truth.” but i knew that for telling the truth i would be punished, in a way that, back then, felt harsh and unfair. for a long time i thought that because i lied, i was a bad person.
but when i grew up, i learned that lying is the tool of the weak. people usually lie in places where they feel they will never be accepted or understood.
looking back at my childhood now, i see that the things i lied about were not such terrible crimes after all. and in the truly critical moments, when i really did something wrong, my mum never found out.
i think this was one of the ruptures i try to avoid between me and my daughter. and if ilaria lies, as every human on earth does, i ask myself: why didn’t she want to tell me the truth this time? what was she afraid of?
transformation
my daughter often lives inside her own fantasy, and transformation is part of her everyday life. for me, changing one’s image belongs to a special occasion, but she needs no reason. she does it for herself. the process, not the event, is what matters.
reclaimed
my story with ballet was traumatic: i trained six days a week for eight years. since then, society has shifted its focus from the aesthetics of ballet to the harshness of its methods and the damage to children’s mental health. for my daughter, though, a ballet tutu is not a symbol of suffering, but one of her favorite wardrobe items.
Scripts
in my childhood, my mother was constantly doing things with me. i remember that, more often than not, neither of us actually enjoyed it.
many of those activities didn’t carry over into my adult life. now, when i do something with my daughter, i always ask myself:
are we truly happy in this moment?
are we doing it because it reflects who we are,
or simply because we think we should?
worry
it’s terrifying to think about your child’s future. what awaits her? what frightening accidents might lie in wait? the constant anxiety and worry for another human being, combined with the knowledge that you have little control over it, is an emotion deeply tied to motherhood.
to have a child, in my case, is an enormous happiness. i know it does not always work this way, and i am very grateful that it did for me, because there is always an element of chance. to have the chance to bring a child into the world and to feel this much love for them is something extraordinary. it comes with a heavy load and a lot of responsibility, but every now and then it is filled with moments of endless lightness and love like this.
Grace
Belonging
my mum used to tell me that i was nothing like her. i believed it for a long time. i believed it so strongly that when i was about seven, i had a moment of dissociation and started thinking that my mum was not really my mum. even now, it is hard for me to feel that we are related, although i can see how many features we share, and how similar some of our movements are.
because of this, even though my daughter has completely different eyes and hair, which she got from her dad, i often tell her that we look alike. and i really do see it, including in her personality. not because i want a small copy of myself, but because i want her to feel the sense of resemblance that helps us enjoy our connection and our time together more honestly.
respect
for me, this photograph is about how in any relationship one person can want something the other person does not want. the only real way out is to recognize that my desire is met with the absence of desire on the other side, and to offer some kind of exchange.
for example, ilaria does not want to be photographed, and i can see that this moment is incredibly beautiful. so i can offer her a treat, or something she wants, instead of saying: “i do so much for you, and you cannot even smile for the camera for me.”
mimesis
This is an age when the boundary between who a person is and what the world is has not yet formed. A child constantly tries on different roles, using everything that is available. Here, watercolor paint becomes nail polish. The body becomes part of the experiment. Not as an act of rebellion, but as a natural way of being in contact with both the self and reality at the same time.
Joy
sometimes i feel an overwhelming amount of love. so much joy and gratitude simply for being able to be together like this, smiling, laughing, sharing the same moment. for me, this image is about the quiet magic of being together, and about how beautiful it is to be alive, to be human.
Veil
i do not see myself in my child. on the contrary, i believe it is important that she is a separate, entirely different person. yet, through her, i begin to see myself. without her, i did not see myself at all.
through her presence, i notice when i am tired, irritated, overwhelmed, when i have taken on too much. before, without her, i carried an unspoken lightness of being and pretended that i was fine. but i was not. now that i am the adult, i realise that i do not just have the right, but the responsibility to give myself space and freedom. because if i cannot give it to myself, i cannot offer it to another. it is strange how, without her, i could not see this.
does a child need two parents? and if i choose not to be with the father of my child, where is the line at which i can still offer enough space and love? what if i am polyamorous? where does my right to explore my own sexuality end when it is non-conventional, and at what point might my uncertainty affect the mental health of my daughter?
how many chairs should stand around a shared table?
my mother decided there should be two, hers and mine, and sometimes i was asked to leave even my own. did this make me a worse person?
recent studies suggest that parenting has very little influence on who we become. that it is mostly dna and social and economic conditions that shape us. perhaps none of this matters at all, if at that table there is no one but her.
need
Projection
with the arrival of a child, you begin to reconsider the weight of your own family history and your role in shaping what comes next. in this image, her small figure stands beside a shadow that feels larger than her body, like past and future meeting on the same wall.
it is a moment suspended in the present, where inherited patterns and imagined destinies overlap. the shadow becomes a metaphor for everything unseen yet influential, the stories we carry, the gestures we repeat, the hopes we project forward.
between these layers, there is still joy. the now remains bright and real, even as it holds both memory and possibility at once.
i have been thinking a lot about mary, and about the fact that the holy virgin knew from the beginning what would happen to Jesus. she lived her whole life with the knowledge of his terrible death. i imagine that even in moments of joy, she remembered it.
as a parent, i see my daughter’s weak points. i see patterns in her behaviour that already make her life more difficult, and i fear they may only grow stronger in the future. i think my mother probably saw the same in me.
and how difficult it is to turn off the desire to help, to correct, to prevent what seems inevitable, and simply trust that life will win. that at the centre of everything there should be love.
and that only love can give me hope that when my daughter grows up, she will look at me differently than i look at my mother.
prophecy
At present, the photographic work is complete,
and I am working on the artist book for this project.