Nature’s Way
How did this collaboration come about?
Luca: Pictures were the main inspiration: the vision of Nature and the woman body evoked a lot of questions in me, especially these days that in Italy the debate on the right to abortion is strong and a source of uncertainty. The idea of representing oneself without censorship, of choosing one’s life and body following one’s instinct, I think is the most natural action that a person can perform. Here the perfect match in the set of photographs between the female body and nature. A single song to represent this double strength was not enough, which is why I thought about writing two complementary tracks. One an Ode to be dedicated to oneself, the other a painting that tells of the Alma Mater, literally the Mother who feeds.
Andrea: Recently, I’ve been contemplating nature a lot and her power to heal us. I went to a hot spring with my sister and afterwards she said to me “I feel so renewed.” And that stuck with me. So I wanted to somehow portray that. How nature is able to drain away the stresses of everyday life, give us serenity, if even for a moment. We’ve become so far removed from nature, we forget how healing it is. But we are of it. And that’s what I wanted my photos to show. Someone living and moving and melding with nature.
What does freedom mean to you?
Andrea: To me, freedom means being confident enough in yourself that you don’t let the opinion of others change your opinion of yourself. Not everyone will like you, even if you’re a good person. People will take a smidgen of information about you and use that to inform their whole opinion of you, so it serves no one to try to please everyone. Once you let go of that need, you are free to do what drives you, without worrying about what people will think of it.
Luca: Freedom is a series of choices, a series of balances that lead as a whole to the feeling of being complete and in harmony with oneself and with others. Precisely because it involves so many actors, freedom is a complex scenario to achieve but like all complex things, it must be grasped and preserved when achieved.
Your favourite place to go when you want to recharge your creative energy?
Luca: A little lake near my apartment in Rome. It is a little miracle: its genesis, completely accidental, dates back to the 90s of the twentieth century and is due to a human error that occurred during excavation work on a construction site for the construction of an underground car park.
Andrea: Short answer is nature. I’m lucky enough to live in Iceland, where I can easily go find a hot spring to bathe in, a waterfall to hike to, a valley to spend hours in looking for crystals. I’m also lucky that my parents own a little cabin a short drive from the city, where I can have a home base while exploring and breathing and immersing.
