Monica Silva Photography
“The Butterfly’s Fall” Postcards from Tokyo
Monica Silva Photography
"Utsusemi no yo ni mo nitaru ka hanazakura saku to mishi ma ni katsu chirinikeri."
A questo mondo umano effimero somiglia il fiore di ciliegio: lo vedo sbocciare e intanto ecco, già sta sfiorendo. Kokin Wakashu.
The Butterfly’s Fall - Postcards from Tokyo Monica Silva
"My body is a blackboard " Monica Silva , a courageous journey into a nomadic life Fernando Pessoa: " The trips are the travelers." Travel, therefore, is not to arrive but to cross the border of the well-known and the unknown: Traveling to discover oneself. This is the primary theme of the new research project by Monica Silva, Brazilian photographer of Sao Paulo, Milanese by adoption, who made a "journey within" the central point of her new exhibition. Monica Silva is an author who moves on vast territories of reportage, fashion photography, artistic experiments and video installations. With this project, Monica Silva faces a brave and difficult process of" bareness "of her younger life, dealing with her own story and a past that until now had been put away, almost forgot. The photographer put herself in connection with the breathing of the world and almost in a sort of psychoanalytic therapy, builds a path of intimate and painful narrative that gathers memories of violence and a poetic voice of hope. The exhibition, in a underground area of the gallery (almost a symbolic return to the womb) has a photographic installation with many small images of female life in Tokyo. This work made the artist reflect on the status of women in Japan and has thus triggered in herself the need to find, in her nomadic life, a new point to start. And that point is just herself , her body, her inner self. The result was the video where Monica Silva with a direct language evokes her story of violence and abuse and, at the same time, the need for redemption, placing herself as the main character of faith in the future. A voice-over, of the author herself, says: "My body is a blackboard , an open space. My body lies on memories of pain, stories of secret truth, deep scars, whispers of silence untold." 25th of November is the International Day Against violence on Women' and Monica Silva's video is a symbolic witness, a warning because even through art, there can be a new awareness in the defense of the woman: "On my body was done violence, childhood stollen, denuded of its purity... My body has been violated, but not my faith, my soul, my dignity.� Monica Silva is in the beginning of a new journey of freedom. Gianluigi Colin - Corriere della Sera