Only Everything Else

The exploration of dynamics between all that compose the surface character – harmonies and clashes alike – when approached from a certain understanding of a place’s story, can transmit more than just the physical constitutions, but also the conscious sensibilities of a place in a moment.

This is the direction of my practice, and specifically within this project, Only Everything Else, which explores the notion of inherence in Palermo, spatially and conceptually.

When establishing the parameters within which the series is framed, I believe that the temporal landscape I photographed in is just as significant as the material, geographical and spiritual landscape that has developed in and around Palermo, and continues to develop, particularly in recent years.

Using the cultural significance of Santa Rosalia as the ballast of the project, the series depicts Palermo’s many spatial and material portraits against the several parallels that coalesce around its inherent sense of itself.

As an omnipresent figure both on the streets and within Palermo’s identity, Rosalia’s image was first invoked as the protector of the city during the 1624 plague after her supposed bones were discovered on Monte Pellegrino.

And just as Palermo’s material and cultural response to Rosalia’s significance are traced along the city and its extended environment, so too is the response to Covid-19, a time during which her iconographic significance was reaffirmed.

In framing the spiritual inherence and Palermo’s historic relationship with Santa Rosalia, the series is grown on the foundational relationship between the city, the saint and the mountain on which her sanctuary is built.