UNROOTED, Exhibition, Shatto Gallery
Mirror Mirror explores the fluid construction of identity as something shaped by both origin and geographical cultural shifts. The work juxtaposes two mirrored landscapes: the Mediterranean pino marino, emblematic of my upbringing in Italy, and the Californian palm trees that now frame my present environment. These images do not simply reflect geographical difference, but rather embody a dialogue between memory and lived reality.
The superimposed tree forms act as both bridge and fracture suggesting how identity is never singular or fixed, but layered, hybrid, and continuously in transition. The Mediterranean pine, with its rooted and expansive, becomes a metaphor for inheritance and cultural grounding, while the verticality of the palm trees evokes adaptation, migration, and reinvention. Each image contains traces of the other, destabilizing the notion of a clear “inside” or “outside” self.
By recognizing myself in both landscapes, the work resists binary definitions of belonging. Instead, it proposes identity as a reflective surface, shifting, refracting, and shaped by context. Mirror Mirror ultimately becomes a meditation on duality, where past and present, here and there, are not oppositional but coexistent within the same visual and psychological space.
While rooted in a personal experience of movement rather than rupture, the work resonates more broadly with narratives of migration and the many forms of separation from place that define contemporary life.