UNIVERSO

I sink my hands into the earth of the garden where I grew up, searching for a root that can restore my sense of belonging. It is an impulsive, almost alchemical gesture: the earth meets water and, in the darkroom, gives life to a sensual flow of signs and traces. A fleeting instant in which willpower and song merge is imprinted on a delicate sheet of photosensitive paper, transforming matter into an inner map.

The outcome is a series of off-camera images, created without the use of any traditional photographic device. Each sheet of baryta paper captures the passage of dust from my past, an echo of memories that settle and then fade into evanescent forms. By superimposing multiple sheets and stitching them together with colored threads, I create intimate constellations: extensions of my thought that expand and contract, like galaxies in perpetual motion. The chromatic interplay of the threads—from blue to red, passing through white and yellow—refers to the stellar classification that distinguishes stars based on their temperatures (O, B, A, F, G, K, M). An ancient and universal code, a mnemonic method used by science to remember the classification of stars, contained in a simple motto: “Oh Be A Fine Guy, Kiss Me”.

An almost childlike melody accompanies me as I work, an invented chant born from a spontaneous impulse of the subconscious. In these words, which appear devoid of meaning, lies a sense of well-being and harmony—a sort of key to open up my imagination and explore the geography of my inner space. I transcribe that chant, then translate it into a language of encrypted symbols, until it becomes a score I can touch and observe: a silent, primordial hymn that once existed only in my mind, now transformed into a lyrical constellation.

When I revisited the fragments of this research, I realized that the transcription of my chant into symbols—drawn on strips of sheet music—reflected the logic of musical codes. Thus, the “Opus” boards were born: two contact-impression tables that evoke the tactile quality of Braille—an embodied language felt through touch—as if they were the user’s manual for this Universe, a kind of sacred bible, an alien language belonging to the subconscious. Afterwards, I recorded these strips with a music box (carillon) and, using a computer, converted the audio into a musical score, shaping a poetic combination of sounds and lights that converse with stellar classification, broadening the horizons of this investigation.

They are snapshots of mental journeys, explorations of a subconscious throbbing in the darkness like an expanding universe. This process developed in parallel with "Aves Mei", a project in which observing caged birds led me to explore my own “mental cage”: in the darkroom, I experienced a condition of only apparent captivity, where my mind could open to flight and imagination, just like those creatures with restrained wings.

Hence, the idea of "Universo" surfaces from a dual movement: one of sinking into memory—the dust, childhood play, the earth—and one of emerging skyward, casting my gaze beyond the boundaries of time and space. The “maps” recount, without words, the energy of inner life stirring beneath the everyday surface. They are snapshots of the mind’s travels, explorations of a subconscious that pulses in the darkness like a galaxy expanding.

Finally, from these symbols, glass sculptures came to life. Like the earth, glass also carries a memory of dust: a material born from fusing silica, steeped in light and transparency. Shaping glass following the forms of this code was a way to anchor the dreamlike dimension to a tactile and luminous presence: concrete objects, yet somehow suspended, fragments of an inner Universe that filters the desire to understand reality through what is invisible.

In "Universo", the visible and invisible intertwine in a dance of primordial elements—earth, water, light, song—that find poetic geography within photographic surfaces, coloured threads, and the transparencies of glass. A sense of wonder emerges, as though one could touch the heartbeat of the cosmos hidden within the dust of a childhood garden and the glow of a yet-to-be-named constellation.

It is a circular journey that begins in the shadow of what once was and ascends toward the stars, stitching together traces of the past and generating new horizons of meaning. A pursuit of returning both matter—and ourselves—to the form of an intimate and universal song.