Erica Campanella from Casalmaiocco (LO)

Your new daily ritual ...
My life, in the scanning of time and space, of moments and rituals has changed a lot. The time dedicated to my family has changed, To myself, to books and my daughters. The spaces in which we are all present have changed, the couch, the table, the bed is a place of union but also of suffering due to a lack of freedom and intimacy. Daily gestures have changed, the speed with which we make them.
Care and patience have become the fundamental weapons. I rediscovered the morning cuddle ritual, of silence in the garden, of tidying up but also of establishing rules, of timetables and cooking. Sharing and tolerance, intolerance and love, respect and anger.
My new daily ritual is to try to gather all the "good" possible in what I do even if it may seem boring.

How your way of working has changed?
At the beginning of all this collective trauma I felt paralyzed, empty, still in confusion and pain. Take into consideration things like loss of freedom, your health and that of your loved ones, it dazed me and immobilized me in a sort of limbo. I also felt quite irritated by the general considerations that an artist must at all costs be the bearer of the collective experience and the time in which he lives. Within this awareness and acceptance I am trying to rediscover a connection with my personal path and with my way of working which has always been characterized by slowness, intimacy and memories.

We are dealing with a new time and space. What are you discovering or rediscovering about yourself?
What I am rediscovering in this new way of living are above all emotions, the ability to experience ever-changing feelings and emotions from moment to moment. Anger, emotion, fear, compassion and impatience are just some of the sensations I've been feeling lately and they chase each other frantically in my mind. I am rediscovering the ability to build a mental space of resilience. The ability to reorganize a new way of thinking around me, without judgment or complaint.

What you're missing? Your personal experience of "absence" and "lack".
In these long days full of family life, I often stopped to think about the lack and the presence. We have always overfilled our lives, we got involved in the system of too fast and too full and we became slaves to it. By stopping, however, I understood what was really missing and what, instead, I began to consider it unnecessary. The void created was filled with a lack that was almost enough to touch and it is precisely this void that fills my thoughts every day at this moment. What perhaps until recently was taken for granted has now become a need, a wish, a necessity that keeps me alive. As Massimo Recalcati says “Lack is a wound that resembles a poem”. I think that the lack in this moment is poetry for me, vital nourishment, enthusiasm for life and the awareness that beautiful days still await us.

Erica Campanella was born in Milan on 7 September 1974, lives and works in the province of Lodi.
He graduated in painting at the Brera Academy of Fine Arts.
His work ranges between painting, restoration and teaching of art history but it is with photography that he manages to create a world full of senses made of intimate beauty and vulnerability. From 2019 works with the Podbielski Contemporary gallery with which he participated in the Mia Photo fair 2019 e al Fotofever Paris 2019. Present at the Ethical Photography Festival of Lodi and at the European Photography Festival of Reggio Emilia. The current project is the exhibition PLEASURE GARDEN inaugurated on 13 February at the Podbielski Contemporary Gallery, Milan.
www.ericacampanella.com