"Intimacy is something extraordinary—it reveals the uniqueness of every human life.
Intimacy, understood as closeness and proximity, is a form of silent and discreet resistance. It is a refuge from the passage of time, from existential crises, and from all the disintegrating forces imposed on us by contemporary society: standardisation, trivialisation, social inequalities, and violence.
I’ve been given the gift of being welcomed into the homes and lives of people. Every time I crossed the threshold of their homes, I was asked if I had eaten and how my family was doing. These questions are not merely a matter of courtesy, but tangible signs of something deeper: care for the other.
Probably only those who have experienced deep solitude can truly be with others. After all, what is photography if not a way of reckoning with one’s own solitude—and overcoming it through sharing, which becomes memory and creation?
Portraying the everyday lives of people by being part of it and celebrating the breadth and richness of its emotions is what interests me most. The wonder of the encounter is the spark from which everything arises, and that wonder, deepened over time, becomes admiration for what is alive in its most essential and authentic form.
I’ve witnessed new lives being born, children becoming teenagers and then parents themselves, and I’ve had to say goodbye forever to some people. All this has reminded me how fragile human beings are—and yet, in the gazes, faces, and caresses of the people I’ve photographed, I’ve found a strength and tenderness that give meaning to our passage on this planet.
This book is nothing but a love letter to the people I have met. As for the title of the book, it comes from a sentence I wrote one Sunday afternoon while wandering through the Rione Sanità neighbourhood. Sunday afternoons, right after lunch, are one of the rare moments when silence reigns in the neighbourhood. The sentence read:
“Silence is a rare gift in these alleys, but in its intimate revelation, you discover the naked and immense soul of a forgotten humanity.”
The title becomes a statement of intent and a manifesto of my aesthetic.
I feel that there’s often a tendency, especially around the South—and Naples in particular—for narratives that must somehow make noise, that must draw attention by exploiting stereotypes and folklore. But in all that noise and media chatter, the real lives of these communities disappear—lives that represent a richness and preserve historical memory.
My images go in the opposite direction. Silence is a Gift speaks of love and solitude, of life and death, of pain and joy—but above all, of intimacy. My images are an attempt to recover the meaning of life through the relationships, neighborhoods, and families who live there.
In particular, I focus on the intimacy of the people, because as Simone Weil wrote in “The Person and the Sacred”: "The people are much closer to an authentic good—whether it be a source of beauty, truth, joy, or fulfillment—than those who bestow their pity upon them. But having not yet reached it, and not knowing how to reach it, it is as if they were infinitely far from it."
The book gathers images taken between 2015 and 2021 in the Rione Sanità of Naples, the Santa Lucia neighborhood in Cosenza, and in Torre del Greco.
The idea of bringing together three of my works in a single book came from Cécile Poimbœuf-Koizumi, co-founder of Chose Commune. Cécile suggested we think together about something designed specifically for the book—a new project. Her idea immediately felt very stimulating. After all, I’ve always seen these three projects of mine as chapters of a single trilogy.
As we worked through the archive, the editor immediately noticed the closeness among my works. The common thread is my proximity to the subjects and their intimacy.
Even the graphic aspect of the book was designed around this concept. We chose a cover paper that would give a sense of something lived-in—rough but warm, with a tone that somehow evokes the domestic hearth. Opening the book, you find an old map of Naples, giving the feeling of leafing through something precious. The images then move through the pages, creating a rhythm that follows the body language of the subjects.
At the end, there’s a text by Erri De Luca. I met Erri during a hike in Agerola along the “Cammino degli Dei.” We started talking about photography and about the book I was finishing.
De Luca saw the photographs and the PDF of the book, and a few days later, he wrote the contribution.
