The Darker the Night, the Brighter the Stars

"The Darker the Night, the Brighter the Stars" is an ode to the youth growing in difficult contexts deprived of opportunities and positive role models.

This long-term documentary project explores youth culture in the Torretta district of Napoli through the traditional bonfire celebration known as Cippo di Sant'Antonio.

Stemming from a pagan tradition where peasants constructed fires with domestic waste to celebrate the end of winter and seek protection for the new year ahead the tradition has taken a unique turn in the city of Napoli. The current iteration of the ritual has evolved in a playful game seeing groups of children aged 6 to 16 take the streets in balaclavas, stealing Christmas trees, engaging in battles with gangs from rival districts and hiding and guarding the loot in secret areas within their territories until the day of the fire.

The game, drenched in violence and mischief in which tropes of friendship, trust, hierarchy, territory, masculinity, law and outlaw, also naively conceals the systemic criminality and territorial attitudes typical of southern Italy.

The fire is seen as a door through which various different dimensions are connected. Past and present as such, a before and after line that the kids look forward to be soon crossing. Youth and manhood, destruction and creation ultimately, life and death. The savagery dominating the creation and lighting up of the fire is followed by a quiet tenderness, the thrilling spirits of the adulthood caged in these young bodies are finally freed up and exhausted in the moment the fire finally burning.

@glaucocanalis

glaucocanalis.com

Daniel Dale - The Happiest Place on Earth

The premise of my project is around the hyperreality produced by Disneyland as a manufactured architectural happiness. I shot the work on several separate occasions concentrating on the facades and imagining it coming together as a series of postcards. There are a lot of underlying themes, consumerism, utopian dream, 'Meinong's Jungle', all of which add to a satirical and sickly sweet view of the place.

@danofthedale

danieldale.co.uk

Angela Crosti - You Are Everything to Me

‘You Are Everything to Me’ reflects on the expected role of motherhood in the patriarchal vision; an idealised myth that dictates how mothers should feel and behave according to social norms. Through my images, I delve into the unsettling reality faced by some mothers who become prisoners of their maternal life, weighed down by the negation of their own well-being, desires, and identity. Through my work, I seek to dismantle the poetic imagery and stereotypes surrounding motherhood, and shed light on the silent battles faced by countless mothers who live through something so universally treasured and revered - motherhood - with extreme loneliness and despair. I invite the viewers to hear the voices of all those mothers who find it difficult to ask for help, either out of shame or for fear of their own sentiments. In an era where just a handful of nations have taken concrete steps to implement supportive policies, I am driven to raise awareness of, and provoke much-needed conversations about, these concealed and unsupported experiences so these important - if difficult - stories can be told.

@angelacrosti_photopraphy

Sveta Kaverina - I am the Sea

The project relates my special connections to the sea and swimming. Since childhood, the sea has been a symbolic environment for me, from which I draws psychological certainty and support. Swimming, physically overcoming the expanse of the sea, becomes a metaphor for the path to oneself, an accessible way of reassembling one’s personality, a simple way to look into one’s own depth.

@svetakaverina.photography

Ilya Daesque - Almost Home

A batch of my recent photos taken over the last few months.

@Ilya_daesque

idaesque.com