libra1-Recuperato

A personal visual diary
on
The Art of Disease
by
Mauro Fiorese

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Chapter 7
Self-cure/selfie

 

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Today, for the first time in my life, I’m focusing probably on the most incomprehensible subject I’ve ever been working on before: ME.
The most fascinating aspect is that ANY time you face ANY subject, you are facing yourself as well.
Only you don’t know that.
But when you do, you become a
“hard subject” as well.
You, me, we are all hard to understand, hard to admit, hard to ignore, hard to accept, hard to Love, hard to forgive. We are simply hard to explain.
And that’s why this is all becoming so intriguing.
Since I’ve found new resources to explore life within the disease
in this time of my existence, I can say that I’ve found a new Me.
And that’s why I became such an interesting subject to myself: I was fascinating and scary at the same time.
I was illuminating myself.

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How many times can you look at your face while crying? Since we always tend to hide our tears in public, what’s going on in our private Life? How do I look when I’m suffering?

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The anxiety of the “selfie ergo sum” that we all show on our Facebook or Instagram page, is the consequence of how much and fast we change our habits while living with a fast-changing technology.
That’s why probably in 2013 the neologism “selfie” was nominated “Word of the Year” by the Oxford Dictionary.

Schermata 2015-06-07 alle 18.04.50

ph: Elizabeth Kleinveld

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Photographing has always been very therapeutic for me.
“Recording” or “documenting”
was never enough.
I’ve always used my camera to raise questions, not to give answers.
So I always need a Project.
In this specific case, though, the Photographer and the Subject became
ONE person, and that’s quite different.
It doesn’t change much for me as a Photographer.
It changes a lot as a Subject.
I would like to say to the Photographer: “hey, this is too intimate!
Don’t take that!”
But Art always requires courage and trust. So I stopped worrying and now I feel like I’m gaining oxygen every day a little more, both physically and mentally.

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The day I realized that I was very sick, my face turned yellow and my nose was bleeding.
I found myself crying in front of the mirror and my face was revealing my
ill identity.
I was afraid to die for the very first time in my Life. I mean… physically afraid.
So I asked this question to myself:
“are you afraid to die?”
And the funny thing is that I
answered back to myself: “Again?”
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Chapter 8
Healing/resurrection

How many times a day do we die a little inside?
And is there a total number of small “soul deaths” that can make it into a final, physical death?
Maybe.
So I thought: today must be the
first of all my lasting days.
The day of my “resurrection”.
And it’s a good day to start.
With no fear.
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My new Mantra is:
“Stop looking for confirmations”
Accept changes and – most of all – contradictions!
Once I’ve learned from a great artist and friend, Jerry Uelsmann, that sometimes the best answer is an even more interesting question.
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I’ve been very lucky to meet some of my “heroes” during my career.
One of them, Mario Giacomelli, used to say that photography is a very simple thing as long as you have IDEAS.
How simple is that? and how difficult?
And another amazing artist and friend, Duane Michals, once told me: “we ALL are Philosophers. Some may be more erudite than others but we all should stop and think about big issues sometimes, like Life, Death or Life after Death”.
How simple is that? and how difficult?
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If you, than, want and need to express your ideas and make them accessible, you can use your pen, your typewriter, your voice, your camera, your guitar, your brush, your body… anything that works for YOU!
That takes time and effort but sooner or later you’ll know what will be right for you and what will fit your needs, your personality, your abilities.
And from that day on you will not be able to live without it.
Because that will make you even more enthusiastic and addicted to Life.
Like never before.
Trust me.
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Funny, I know, but today I’m grateful to my disease for letting me understand all this and for giving me one more reason to live.
Today I’m falling in Love with Life in the same way I fall asleep: slowly first and than… deeply.
And I don’t want to wake up.
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Mauro Fiorese all rights reserved
January/February 2015
to be continued…