The breath of the forest is a project that was born before the pandemic and developed as a therapeutic response to it.

In 2017, for the first time the idea of visually representing my connection with trees and some of the most significant forests in Europe emerged. Moved by a form of forest therapy that pushes me to go to the woods whenever I need to oxygenate and relax, I wanted to narrate my way of connecting to this natural environment taking inspiration from one of my favorite practices: meditation.

To begin this exercise I sit down, close my eyes, align my back and concentrate on my breathing.

In yoga practice, or in many other oriental disciplines, the act of breathing is marked by the vertical movement of the diaphragm: in inhalation the muscle descends; in exhalation the muscle ascends. Hence the practice of performing diptychs, born as two times of breathing: an inhalation and an exhalation. Thus the camera, emulating this movement, lowers and rises and imprints on the sensor my connection with the chosen forest.

The project does not portray a single forest. Over the years I have created a European map of forests dear to me (and particularly protected) where I have visited in different seasons of the year to represent the life cycle of these complex organisms, which like our body, experience degeneration and flowering. The project aims to publish a self-produced book. In addition to presenting about thirty diptychs, I would like to raise awareness in the reader of the major critical issues of each forest that I tell and represent.