Italy, Inherited
I was born in the United States, but all four of my grandparents emigrated from Italy—my paternal grandparents through Ellis Island, my maternal grandparents by way of Canada before settling in the United States. Although I grew up American, Italy has always been part of the story of who I am. Each time I return to photograph there, the pictures become a kind of mirror. Whatever else they depict, they also reflect my attempt to understand what it means to inherit a place and a culture I have known more through family history than through lived experience.
These photographs were made during a five-week journey through Italy, much of it spent traveling by bus. I photographed constantly, often through the bus window, where reflections of the bus interior, the passing landscape, and the world beyond the glass merged into a single frame. Many of the photographs made away from the bus share that same visual layering. The images are created entirely in camera, in a single exposure.
What I see in these photographic mirrors is rarely clear. Reflection, interior, and exterior blur together until I can no longer tell where one ends and another begins—much like an identity inherited rather than lived firsthand. I am looking at Italy from the inside of something moving, through glass, at a remove I cannot fully close. The photographs do not resolve that distance. They simply reveal it.
