I was born in Rome in 1998 to an Italian father and Croatian mother and after studying photography I graduated in 2020.
Photography for me is a tool for constant research into everything that surrounds me. With my thesis project, I wanted to use photography to investigate what drives the new generation to stay on an island that does not offer much in the way of work and to carry on traditions. It is a personal research through my origins.
The Land of the Sons
Mljet is an island in Croatia where part of my family comes from. Mljet is part of me, as is Rome, my hometown, but when your heart is divided between two countries that are so paradoxically different, you can’t decide where you belong. The first encounter with the island of Mljet will stay with you forever. Its hills, sea and nature are part of my memories, as are its people, always cheerful and ready to party at every opportunity. Looking at it today, the island is identical to how it was a hundred years ago. The trades and traditions have not changed, they are handed down and carried on over time. It is easy to come across teenagers working in professions such as shepherding or fishing.
Mine is an emotional research that wants to understand the real meaning behind the island’s strong appeal to this generation with a lifestyle that, in a modern society like ours, would be considered to belong to past eras.
