WHAT FIRST DREW YOU TO PHOTOGRAPHY, AND WHEN DID IT START TO FEEL LIKE SOMETHING YOU WANTED TO COMMIT TO SERIOUSLY?
I think it started because I always felt a bit different from the others. Growing up outside a big city, I was often the strange one — different hair, different looks — and I always felt slightly out of place. From a young age, I wanted to travel, to move, to meet people, and see what was beyond where I grew up.
When I was at art high school, there was a darkroom, and I remember very vividly the first time I developed and printed my own photographs. Seeing that image appear, I felt like it was the closest thing to giving a real shape to what was already in my head. That moment really stayed with me.
I knew I wanted to be a photographer from around the age of fourteen, and that never changed, even when it was, and still is sometimes, very hard. It’s not the easiest job, and it doesn’t come with much security, but the freedom to follow what I’m interested in, and to do what I feel drawn to, has always mattered more to me than anything else.
YOU GREW UP IN THE SUBURBS AND LATER MOVED TO MILAN. HOW DID THOSE PLACES SHAPE THE WAY YOU LOOK AT PEOPLE AND EVERYDAY LIFE?
Growing up in the suburbs was important for me. Not living in a big city meant that many things felt out of reach, and I had to learn early on to go and get what I wanted by myself. That shaped the way I look at life with a sense of curiosity.
At first, Milan was somewhere I wanted to escape to. But later, I found myself living in the outskirts of the city again, in a council housing area in the west of Milan, where I still live today. Coming back to that environment changed everything for me.
What surprised me most was the sense of community. In Milan, it’s common not to know your neighbours at all, but here people brought me food, kids knocked on my door to say welcome, neighbours helped take care of my dog. I became part of everyday life — doing homework with children, sharing small moments — and photographing it came very naturally from that.
Living there taught me to look more closely at what’s considered ordinary. The people, the routines, the relationships — these are the things that really shape how I see everyday life now, and they’ve become central to the way I work.
A LOT OF YOUR WORK IS ROOTED IN THE OUTSKIRTS OF MILAN. WHAT IS IT ABOUT THOSE AREAS THAT KEEPS PULLING YOU BACK?
I’ve always been drawn to people and subcultures that sit on the edges of society, probably because, in different ways, I’ve felt part of that myself. With the outskirts of Milan, that instinct became something much more personal, because it’s not a place I visit to “document.” It’s where I’m living, and where my everyday life happens.
What keeps pulling me back is that these areas are constantly talked about from a distance, often with fear attached to them. Right now especially, there’s a lot of anxiety about the outskirts, and I think so much of it comes down to communication — stories being amplified, simplified, and repeated until people in the centre start imagining the outskirts as something dangerous.
So for me, photographing these places is partly about staying close to what’s real. Not making something sensational, but showing the full picture — the normal everyday things, and the people who live their lives here like anyone else.
MILAN IS OFTEN SEEN FROM THE OUTSIDE AS A FAST, FASHIONABLE, POLISHED CITY. WHAT DOES THE CITY FEEL LIKE FROM WHERE YOU’RE STANDING?
I think, like every city, Milan doesn’t have just one reality. There are many Milans happening at the same time. Of course, it’s the fashion capital, it’s fast, it has a polished surface, and there’s a lot of “cool” culture and people moving through it.
But at the same time, it’s also a city with social problems, and there’s this feeling that the municipality is trying to “clean up” the city so people from outside only experience that polished version.
From where I’m standing, the most important reality is that the people in the outskirts are not some separate world, they’re just like everyone else, doing normal everyday things, trying to have a voice and to be heard.
And personally, even though Milan can be expensive and not always the friendliest place socially, I still love parts of its physical character — the concrete, the street culture, street art, exhibitions — that vibrant feeling you get when you move through certain parts of the city.
LOOKING ACROSS WHATEVER, VILLAGGIO DEI FIORI AND COMETE, HOW DID THESE PROJECTS COME ABOUT? DID THEY GROW NATURALLY, OR DID YOU HAVE A CLEAR IDEA FROM THE START?
Usually, it’s the opposite of having a clear idea first. I might think I want to plan something, but most of the time, I find myself in a situation and then I realise, “Oh my God, this is so cool. This is so important. I want to talk about this.”
With Whatever, for example, it wasn’t like I set out to document rave culture. I was just taking pictures of my friends — and only later, looking back, I realised the photos were this really intimate glimpse into that world. It became a way to show that ravers aren’t “monsters” in abandoned buildings, but people. There’s humanity in it.
A lot of my projects start like that: life first, then the meaning reveals itself. And then, of course, once I recognise something is there, I put fuel on the fire. I commit to it and build it out.