Every ritual gesture creates silence around us. A silence that inevitably connects us with ourselves and reminds us who we are. "Velo di sposa" (Bridal veil) focusses on the symbolic meaning of the ritual gesture of placing the white veil on the bride’s head. It is one of the few ritual gestures to have survived into the contemporary age and, though mostly stripped of its ancient symbolic meaning, it still retains its power.
The white veil has its own intrinsic symbolic value, a sort of pulsating light that lives with its own strength, regardless of what tradition intends it to represent. The veil as a second skin, and therefore, a change of state. It was by following this pulsating light that the images of the nude brides, the votive bride, and the other brides emerged. From real images on Polaroids, they become figures of fantasy, intriguing and mysterious.
My bride has spread her veil over the sea and from the bottom of the troubled waters, she has recovered a vital force she thought she had lost. My bride walks alone, proud, magical, and whoever wants to follow her becomes an accomplice in a story to be rewritten together. Other women and some men join. We are on the ocean where the battle between Moby Dick and Captain Ahab takes place. The woman who sells fish at the market on the water smiles and tells us that here the sea is safe, there is nothing to fear.
