“How would we live if we didn’t have pre-established gender models?”

This is the question posed by the project Gender Theory by the photographer and filmmaker Rossella Agostini. After graduating in photography from Columbia College in Chicago, the artist decided to focus her research on the celebration of the individual as such and his relationship with the surrounding world.

The exploration of interpersonal relationships is highlighted by a type of aesthetics that prefers subjects visible from afar placed in empty spaces: together with the enhancement of beauty out of the ordinary Rossella thus creates a narrative coherence. The artist has described her photographic series as follows:

“Gender Theory” is a photo series that rejects the idea that gender is strictly binary by exploring a reality where identity is not socially constructed. It touches upon the issues of gender and sexuality and demonstrates how the biological sex, gender identity and gender expression are not always aligned”.

Through an elegant role-playing game, Rossella’s images tell a story capable of reaching the public immediately, it is no coincidence that Gender Theory won the London Photo Festival in 2018.

Visit the artist’s website here.

We have already talked about Linecheck, the event dedicated to the Italian and international music ecosystem. We attended the event ourselves, and – through the lens of Andrés Juan Suarez – this is what we saw. We breathed in an air of novelty in an occasion for meeting and discussion that allowed us to discover new talents and many of the emerging musical trends. In short, an unmissable event within the framework of Milan Music Week. Our favorite performances were those of Daniela Pes, 72-HOUR POST FIGHT, and Post Nebbia. This year’s theme was #ManyKisses, with the intention of seeing music as an ecosystem: a polyamorous community that grows through continuous dialogue among its members, the circulation of inspiring and creative energy, along with the exchange between established personalities on the scene and emerging artists.

ph. Andrés Juan Suarez

Lucas Cerri is a French photographer, born in Cannes, who ranges from travel photography to portraits, but the vocation for this art came almost by chance. 

In fact, Lucas was born as a musician, then over time, in addition to expressing emotions, thoughts and feelings through notes and melodies, he also began to do through images. 

Since then, whether analogue or digital, the camera has always been part of his days. 

Scrolling through his website and delving into his portfolio we can immediately see how Lucas Cerri manages to range from travel photography, with which he takes us to every corner of the world, from Iceland to the United States, from warm Portugal to cold Norway, to intimate and delicate portraits. 

Among his works the nude plays a predominant role and the body, with its shapes and lines, becomes almost a sculpture to be captured in all its naturalness. Often, the bodies he takes are immersed in nature, almost overwhelmed by it, and looking at Lucas Cerri’s photographs we feel that sense of freedom that we feel when we dive into the deep waters of the sea, or when we run through desolate fields. 

Below you can find a selection of shots, but to discover all the works of Lucas Cerri visit his site and follow him on Instagram. 

«A risky project, a bit like writing,» Catanian photographer Salvo Sibilla explains when talking to us about his street photography project entitled Sani e Salvi. It is a project that was not born to be so. A collection of private amateur shots, taken with an iPhone, that take on a public dimension. It all begins in 2020 when Salvo starts shooting on the street, partly to seek company in a new city-which in the case of Milan is capable of making you feel very lonely, and partly to capture the extravagance around him that he was not used to. In the summer of 2022 he decided to go public and share part of his smartphone gallery. Salvo encapsulates in one project his amateur shots “full of lights, faces and lives,” as his collaborator and friend Loris Di Bella puts it. Stripped of their intimate dimension, the “anti-ethical” photographs – using Salvo’s words – come to life by dialoguing with each other and realizing the presence of a great common denominator: immediacy layered with extravagance.

Sani e Salvi does not stay only in Milan. He travels different streets and different cities, from Milan to Amsterdam, from Rotterdam to Sestri Levante, from Finale Ligure to Pedara, and finally from Bologna to Catania, Salvo Sibilla’s hometown. Salvo’s favorite subjects are elderly people, he himself tells us the reason for this choice. «The first reason, the most human one, is because they remind me of my grandparents, the people I miss the most since I moved to Milan. I am a very romantic person, so I look for this aspect in my shots as well. In older people I find the same pure and kind soul of my grandparents».

This project becomes for Salvo Sibilla a kind of adaptation therapy in a new city. Coming from Catania and landing in Milan, the cultural differences are many. «I liked walking in the street and observing everything around me. Coming from a small town like Catania, unfortunately you are born with stereotypes and mental limitations. When I arrived in Milan, these visual limits began to fall away, all those aspects that I initially judged as extravagances became normality today». The photographs thus become a way of relating to the new everyday life and, at the same time, of discovering a new city. In this sense, it is interesting to emphasize Salvo Sibilla’s photographic approach, which he himself describes as “somewhat anti-ethical.” «My technique is to act like a tourist. I stop by pretending to look for a street and take the photograph of the person, very closely,» he explains, «Very often older people do not notice it, as well as my grandparents although they, with time, have learned to recognize my methodology and now they are very happy when I take them, they feel a bit like the protagonists».

«Sani e Salvi can be said to have been born recently and still has everything to discover and to have come to the end, gaining wisdom,» we read again in Loris Di Bella’s text. Therefore, the project does not end here; on the contrary, it becomes for Salvo Sibilla a starting point that has taught him «to never give up,» as Salvo confesses to us, who closes the interview by quoting the phrase of a friend of his: “keep doing what you do regardless of everything and everyone.”

Courtesy Salvo Sibilla