The Human Fire

Halfway between hope and catastrophe. The Human Fire, quite simply, replicates a visual conversation I had with my 9-year old son, Martino, when I came back from an assignment covering the catastrophic earthquake that struck Turkey and Syria. Martino is used to my work travels but this time was different. As I came back, he hugged me strongly, insistently. Tenderly. He must have sensed I was back from an abyss of pain. I knew then that - even if difficult - I could not escape talking to him about the earthquake. I did it showing him my photos. Not all of them. He was struck by the night ones, mostly showing humans huddled around fires in front of the rubble that had been their homes. Martino said it made him think of the primitive humans inventing fire. Nothing more to the point, I realized this was the essence of my pictures. When the all that human genius has invented to protect us from the world collapses - as it did in Turkey - humans turn to fire for a shield against the cold and the abyss of despair. Around those fires, fragile and indestructible, humans had already started to rebuild their lives.