Home during quarantine – the photographs of Camilla Ferrari

Home – the place that gives stability and support to every individual. That special space that we dream of and fight for, because among everything else, it is a symbol of security and success. Even if we don’t realize it, home plays a major role in building us as individuals. From a very early age, it actively participates in creating a sense of comfort and security, which are important for the child and thanks to them, one day he becomes a stable and self-confident person.

Home is that private space with which we identify, which separates us from the public world and gives us the freedom to be ourselves, taking off the masks of all the roles that society forces us to play. Until the masks became too literal, and the need for security and protection became vital.

photo: Camilla Ferrari

During the forced quarantine, under which almost the entire world was placed, due to the Covid pandemic, the home gained even greater importance and became the only safe place from the insidious virus. Especially in heavily affected regions such as Lombardy - Italy, the home became a symbol of salvation. However, staying at home for a long time, the feeling of security is replaced by a number of other states and sensations such as: deep, all-encompassing loneliness, due to the long isolation and lack of contacts, depression, anxiety, fear for one's own life and that of loved ones, doom, loss of meaning, of faith, a sense of uselessness, powerlessness, suicidal thoughts, etc. Thus, gradually from a place of comfort and security, for many people the home has become a prison or a tomb for the living.

Italy was one of the countries most affected by Covid-19 at the beginning of the pandemic. Being an artist in Italy at that time was extremely difficult, if not impossible. As a photographer and lecturer in Milan, Camilla Ferrari (28) was forced to suspend her activities and stay at home for months, unable to create. But an artist cannot simply stop creating, just as a person cannot stop breathing for a while and then continue again. Left alone with her thoughts, Camilla begins to make sense of the projection that the four walls of her home give, and soon ordinary scenes and incidents of everyday life take on a whole new meaning. Thus was born the photography project "Poetry of Home".

Camila Ferrari's photographs are extremely insightful and give a completely new vision of the home, forcing us to rethink the interior and exterior space in a way we have never imagined before. Camila has managed to capture in her photographs not only the frozen home with the objects and furniture that fill it, but also the spirit of the dwelling and the states that those trapped inside it go through.

photo: Camilla Ferrari