Embodied Spaces

Diego Ferrari sees photography as a mode of performance, and simultaneously he takes performance to be an integral part of photography. For him, photography is not only a mode of seeing, but an inquiry into perception. He is interested in the flow of time and in capturing a stillness that brings awareness of the elements, visible and invisible, which governs all aspects of our lives, and without which we could not exist.

Ferrari’s work highlights the fact that the natural environment is a living entity, separate from human consciousness. Yet we read landscapes through linearities, symmetries and shapes, looking for a way to measure the power of the land against our human dimensions. By using physical performance, Ferrari challenges the infinite mutability of digital imagery, and how it has contributed our perception of the physical world as a malleable canvas, a mere backdrop for human endeavour. Ferrari’s radical interventions draw upon the mathematical origin of the sublime, projecting it from concept onto reality, inscribing human spatial relationships in startling natural landscapes. Jean McNeil. 2023