Photography is a dance where everything follows rhythm
Featuring Pietro Bucciarelli as part of partnership with Connected Archives
Words by Nastasia Khmelnitski
Pietro’s images are available for licensing on Connected Archives Website
Pietro Bucciarelli is an Italian photographer and part of Connected Archives. With his work, Pietro introduces objects and landscapes, slightly shifting the perspective to generate an emotional response from the viewer. This work with feelings that emerge on the boundary between the familiar and
unfamiliar spaces affects the viewer's perception of distance from the narrative. Pietro documents the surroundings and creates stories that include symbolic elements in connection to the real, enriching the image with additional layers of meaning.
We speak with Pietro about the drive that led him to choose the medium and the importance of printing the image to feel it in the space as part of the bigger story and in connection to other images. Pietro describes his process, “I print my photos in different formats and put them next to older ones, almost like a game, to see in which new ways I can read the information and how everything can change.” We discuss Arvest! Photo Fest and the recent residency during which Pietro worked on the project Protecting, researching the relationship between art and territory. Pietro speaks about the importance of observation and experience in his work and presents his new project — I Exist Because My Parents Had Sex.
WÜL Magazine partnered with Connected Archives, an international collective of established and award-winning artists, for the interview series. In the series, we discuss with artists their practice and how it developed, the establishment of their vision, and their relationship with photography. Connected Archives is a global community of photographers created by Daniel Gebhart De Koekkoek. The community supports emerging and established artists and provides an opportunity to offer exclusive and published images for licensing for commercial and editorial usage.
‘The best photos are taken when you are not photographing but when you are lying in bed before going to sleep; or when you look at old photos that you have placed on one side after a long time.’
Way Into Photography
What led you to decide to learn and focus on photography? How did you develop the language that is unique to you and allows you to research the topics you choose from your authentic perspective, such as working with both analog and digital and experimenting with flash, for example?
I think I chose photography as my main tool mostly because of my temper. It is a reflection of who I am. I'm someone who, in most cases, wants everything right away. I started to approach the world of photography during the period of my adolescence. Unlike many of my friends, everything I began bored me. I started to have different interests and different rhythms, and I felt the need to get everything out quickly, escape, and find a way out. Many times I just needed to find the right excuse to do something.
So I started taking bad pictures at the age of 15. However, I put 2021 as 'year zero' — the year in which I began to recognize my photography more sincerely. Actually, I became aware of the fact that I had nothing in hand. I began to ask myself questions, recognize what I wanted to tell, seek answers, and understand that the best photos are taken when you are not photographing but when you are lying in bed before going to sleep; or when you look at old photos that you have placed on one side after a long time. I don't consider this research of mine 'wanting something' — it's too pretentious. And I don't even want to fall into the cliché of 'photography as a necessity.' But simply, in the most natural and sincere way in the world, it's something I do, something I like, and something that sometimes excites me.
I have always been attracted by the aesthetic. It has always been the first factor I took into consideration. But I can say that over time the aesthetic has changed along with my person — it has grown with me… I used to consider a situation aesthetical when it was rich in elements; now, something beautiful is a sort of harmonic nothingness that thrives on its own energy, where the photographer can do little more than just capture it.
I have a very tactile or material relationship with photography. I print practically all the material I produce because, for me, it is essential to touch it with my hands and put it in a tangible place. I print my photos in different formats and put them next to older ones, almost like a game, to see in which new ways I can read the information and how everything can change. I often put sequences of photographs on notebooks, and it's nice to browse through them over time, almost as if they were photo albums, studies, or research.
‘In my project, Protecting, I focused on the theme of protection. I investigated the relationship between contemporary art and territory. The confrontation with the foreign object is the central theme of the story.’
Available for licensing on Connected Archives
Artistic Residence
Recently you had the experience of taking part in an artistic residence at Arvest! that puts emphasis on contemporary art. Tell us about this experience and the research you made when working on your part of the exhibition.
Arvest! Photo Fest is a contemporary photography festival created by Giada Storelli and Francesco Gili. I had the pleasure of participating in September (for four days of residence) and then returning in November (for the opening of the exhibition). In fact, together with two other photographers (Camilla Glorioso and Marco De Ieso), we were the guests of the second photographic residence of Arvest! to investigate the relationship between contemporary art and the territory in the places of the Alta Langa.
In collaboration with the Lunetta 11 art gallery, the chosen theme aims to reflect on the relationship between art and territory when it leaves institutional venues, such as museums and galleries, and settles in the streets, churches, and natural landscapes of small rural villages. It was certainly a particular and immersive experience. The wild nature of the territory and the few people who live there made a strong contrast with the art gallery, which has been a basin for creatives and those interested in the art scene. The three-day residency flowed at its own pace within magical landscapes.
In my project, Protecting, I focused on the theme of protection. I investigated the relationship between contemporary art and territory. The confrontation with the foreign object is the central theme of the story. I used symbols that evoked the feeling of protection in a place that was preparing to welcome something alien to their daily life.
‘I think that photography is always an exchange. There's the way I read the subject and the way in which the subject decides to show himself to me.’
The Angle
Your work is very much connected to visual storytelling in a tactile sense of the relationship of the subject with the natural environment. Nature, abstract concepts, and the link to the human being are the themes you develop. What are the questions you want to raise and speak about with your work?
I mostly photograph what surrounds me in my everyday life: from fruits I find on the table at my parents' house to people I meet to empty landscapes I notice driving around. This urgency of mine, which made me approach photography in the first place, transformed over time into a sort of slowness, sometimes desired and sometimes sought after.
I'm an extremely shy person, and, therefore, I need to establish a relationship with the person in front of me first, as well as to get to know the landscapes or objects I'm going to photograph. I think that photography is always an exchange. There's the way I read the subject and the way in which the subject decides to show himself to me. I think it would almost be a lie to portray someone with strict times or in ways imposed by others. I experience it as a sort of dance where everything follows rhythms with eye games and immense silences full of words.
I see and feel the people and the objects I photograph as elements that live in relation to the space in which they are. I try to leave everything as I find it, to notice in which direction the eyes of the person in front of me are moving or the way the person twists their fingers. The same happens with objects. I observe the light as it revolves around them, the relationship it has with the space that surrounds it. I experience photography in an extremely solitary way, and I believe this can be perceived in my photos. I often find myself photographing my meals, my bedrooms, or the places I pass through. It's the same with people. There are few that I can define as 'friends,' and in a certain sense, I'm fine with that too. I stay away from bonding to ensure that everything is new and known in the right way and at the right time. I don't think I could photograph the same person more than three times.
Available for licensing on Connected Archives
Available for licensing on Connected Archives
‘In addition to being part of a community, which is very important in a period where we are increasingly prone to selfishness, on Connected Archives, you will find friends and professionals in the sector with a very high index of creativity and talent.’
Connected Archives
What is the additional value that being part of Connected Archives allows you to pursue (as connected to your vision, technique, or themes you process)?
Becoming part of Connected Archives, especially around the time I joined, was very important for me. I came from an artistic residency followed by a work experience at Benetton that had left me a bit poor in photographic material, and I spent my time reworking my archive photos more than taking new ones. Then boom, there was Connected Archives.
In summary, we can say that it gave new life to all those photos that you would otherwise consider 'past,' and it allows you to create a large showcase and archive of your photography. In addition to being part of a community, which is very important in a period where we are increasingly prone to selfishness, on Connected Archives, you will find friends and professionals in the sector with a very high index of creativity and talent. It's a splendid way to keep your images from dying and be able to rebuild more or less short projects in ever different forms. You know that the people who enter Connected Archives are looking for exactly that genre and that type of photography.
I also think that a great point of Connected Archives is the selection they do to become part of them, a factor that differentiates them from hundreds of other sites. They are always ready to answer your questions and always ready for new initiatives… In fact, the campaign in collaboration with print4peace has just started where 25 Connected Archives artists have been selected to put their photos on sale, and where the money earned will be donated to help the earthquake victims of Syria and Turkey.
‘I love the moment the photos I've taken all week come off the printer, and I have the time to arrange them, move them around, and stick them on the wall. I'm not sure what the message is behind this work, but at the moment, being so young, it doesn't even interest me because I know it will come to me over time.’
Next Project
What is the next project we will see from you, and what topic are you developing?
In addition to Learning How to Hide, a project that started in 2021 that deals with the loss of all my hard drives that contained my works from day zero, in the last period, I've been making many still lifes and fishing out many old photos from negatives and prints that I had set aside here at home.
In I Exist Because My Parents Had Sex, I'm trying to go back to simpler photography without unnecessary ornaments. I document (as always) what happens to me, but in a much less rhetorical and much more real way. I would like to have in my collection a very large quantity of images not distinguished by genre (landscape, still life, portraits) but which can all live under the same hat and speak the same dialect.
You will, therefore, understand that this process and this research requires much more consideration than action, much more connections than walks in the open air. But I believe that now it is exactly what I need. I love the moment the photos I've taken all week come off the printer, and I have the time to arrange them, move them around, and stick them on the wall. I'm not sure what the message is behind this work, but at the moment, being so young, it doesn't even interest me because I know it will come to me over time. I can see which common elements and places return. It's a kind of calendar.
