Matteo
Reggio-Emilia, Italy
38, Photographer
“There are no forms in nature. Nature is a vast, chaotic collection of shapes. You as an artist create configurations out of chaos. You make a formal statement where there was none to begin with. All art is a combination of an external event and an internal event.”
Ansel Adams, American Photographer and Environmentalist
The Roads We Take
“I came here with Domenico, one of my best friends. We were talking a fair bit back in 2013, the year before moving, that we wanted to change life a little bit, to see something different. We heard from a lot of friends about Australia, and it looked pretty cool. It was easy to find work and make money. So we were attracted by the idea.
I was fascinated by the fact that Australia is so far away from Italy. When you are in Italy, you don't know much about Australia. You only see the stereotypes, like kangaroos, stupid shows about airport security, and all these sorts of things. You don't know the underground, you don't know about the melting pot of cultures. You don't know the little nuances of the place. We were attracted to it, we heard that the weather was great. So, yeah, Australia was the choice.”
“It's like a honeymoon when you arrive here. Everything is exciting, the world is your oyster, and you're young. I didn't have big hopes and dreams. I don't want to get too dramatic now, but I was feeling maybe more positive compared to the years after. And then things slowly start changing, and you realise that it's not all gold. Although life is easy compared to other places on Earth, it's still not 100% easy. hat's kind of the shift is both about understanding better, stopping to idolise the place and putting the place on a pedestal. You see the place for what it actually is.”
Faces of Australia
“Of course, there are positives and negatives, as in any society on Earth. I think that on a positive note, I love the melting pot, the multiculturalism of the country. When I was in Italy, I pretty much only knew Italians and some Europeans, but when I moved here I met Middle Eastern people, Asian people, Australians, like pure kind of old-school Anglo-Saxon Australian people.
You learn all these different ways of being and coexisting in the same place, and I love that. It's really, really interesting and fascinating. I always see people here to be quite positive, because the place is pretty safe although it's expensive. You need to work 70 million hours a week just to be able to pay your mortgage. Still, people do pretty well. It's a progressive society from a certain point of view, the understanding of new trends, of how a good society should be, and acceptance of people's identities. Because it's so multicultural, people have to be accepting of other cultures and backgrounds. I found some extremely intelligent people in this place, coming from all different life paths. I met people who are my best friends. I met the love of my life. People are what sell the place to me, it's not the beaches or whatever else. People in Australia are just beautiful.”
“The negatives... I think the same that you can find in every other place. Unfortunately, there's still a lot of bigotry and close-minded people who just don't take enough time to educate themselves or they don't have enough for it. Maybe they have to work so much that they don't have the time to think about what's right or wrong. But that happens in every country. I think that there are things that I would like to be better. Like the cost of living to be a bit lower. Some things are just plain stupid, but there's no perfect country.”
“The fact that the Australian economy is so much based on exploiting the land is mind-blowing. That's another concerning thing considering the current climate situation... Unfortunately, the British Empire is probably one of the worst things to ever happen to the planet. We still see the consequences of it. We see the exploitation of places to the maximum, in the most extensive way possible, just to gather the riches. You can see that idea keeps manifesting here, the idea of always trying to have the maximum profit with the minimum work. I am not saying Australian people are not hard workers. I wish there was a better way to colonise the world if colonisation really had to happen.”
“I do Uber driving and sometimes I talk to people. They're like "Oh, where's your accent from?" "I'm Italian." "Oh, I love Italy!" There is always that kind of huge stereotypical conversation about Italy. They're like "Oh, we are so lucky that Italians moved here. Now we have good coffee and good food, thanks to you guys." And I'm like "Oh, that's really cute." It's just so funny to see that naive view, and I'm saying this because I heard it so many times, it's not even funny. They mostly see the good things. They see how beautiful the country is as a holiday destination, how great Italian food is, and how warm and dramatic Italian people are. They don't really know what's going on in Italy. They don't know why Italy is pretty much fucked. They don't know the extent of the power of Italian Mafia.”
“Moving here in the first months, I didn't know what was going on. When I moved here, I used to communicate with my parents a lot via email, I was writing these long emails, and a while ago I went back and read them. Wow, man! I was so positive. In Italy we have this expression which means that you have slices of prosciutto in front of your eyes, so you see everything through glasses and everything is beautiful. I really thought that this place was the greatest thing on earth because I didn't know yet, I had a naive view of it. And I think that is how Australian people only know the surface of what Italy is or other countries, which is fair enough.”
“I don't know. I honestly don't know. If you ask me what it means to be Italian, I don't know either. I don't have a feeling of blind national pride. I'm not that kind of person, it doesn't make sense to me. I think being Australian means being a resident of the country. The same as being an Italian - being a resident in Italy. Wherever you came from, whoever you are, if you have been living in a place for a little bit, you are a part of a country. I think it would be interesting to ask someone who was born here.”
Building Connections
“I think I belong here. I guess how we feel about the place is about the people we know. I love it here, I love the people, I love Charlotte, it has been my home for almost 11 years. That's why I think I belong here.”
“I've been thinking a lot about it recently because I was struggling with my self-confidence in that regard. I've been in quite an unstable situation for a while now. For a while, I was feeling not super confident because I didn't have a nice, fancy, full-time job.
But then I finally came to the realisation that it doesn't define me as a person. For me, the fact that I don't have a full-time fancy job doesn't change anything about me being here, it doesn't change my social circle. It doesn't change my appreciation for the place. What connects me with Australia? I think the people I know. I think the people I know here are the most important aspect of the place.”
What It Means to Belong
“I think I belong here. I guess how we feel about the place is about the people we know. I love it here, I love the people, I love Charlotte, it has been my home for almost 11 years. That's why I think I belong here.”
“I've been thinking a lot about it recently because I was struggling with my self-confidence in that regard. I've been in quite an unstable situation for a while now. For a while, I was feeling not super confident because I didn't have a nice, fancy, full-time job.
But then I finally came to the realisation that it doesn't define me as a person. For me, the fact that I don't have a full-time fancy job doesn't change anything about me being here, it doesn't change my social circle. It doesn't change my appreciation for the place. What connects me with Australia? I think the people I know. I think the people I know here are the most important aspect of the place.”
In Between Cultures
“I still say I'm Italian. I'm Italian with Australian permanent residency. One day when I finally stop procrastinating and get this Australian citizenship, I will say I have a double nationality, I guess.”
“It is important for me to get the passport for practical reasons, not at all to say that I'm an Australian as well. It relates to the other question about the fact that I don't have national pride, it doesn't identify me.”
“It is coming up more and more with my relationship with Charlotte. I'm a very mild version of an Italian, of what the world considers to be an Italian. But for Charlotte, I am the most dramatic thing that she's ever interacted with. Although we are both white English-speaking people, we are also culturally very different. I'm noticing it, and it's funny because I don't feel the need to express the fact that I'm Italian. I just don't believe in over-celebrating that part of myself. She makes me realise that it comes out. I don't express it for the need to express it, it comes out because of how I was brought up.”
“I think that there are certain traits, there's no such thing as a perfect culture. Every single culture in the world has some traits, that there could be some work to be done on them. For example, the way we Italians are overly dramatic, especially when facing criticism. We tend to take it very personally. It's something so stupid about Italians. We have this kind of internal self-doubt.”
“There are good traits in every national background, and there are traits that might be hard to digest for people from other cultures. It's important to find the balance. Being able to interact between cultures in a non-destructive way, in a way that can help to understand each other better, and to grow. In Italy, we've been doing this thing forever, probably it is not the right way to solve certain problems. Then you think about it, you work on it, and maybe evolve to a different stage.”
“I think I'm the gentle, mild, dramatic Italian. I enjoy it, I realise it's something people appreciate in me.”
Art as a Bridge
“I think visual art can always be a tool for showing to someone else, either your feelings or your observations, through paintings, photography, whatever.
If you can use visual art to convey a certain feeling or observation about your culture to someone who's from another culture, you can create a bridge of understanding. You don't have to rely only on words. Most of the time, visual art is not about the subject, it's more about the feeling of it. It can be a double-edged sword, it can be very open to interpretation, and you cannot control what the observer thinks.”
“For an external person, it is very useful to use visual art to explore another culture. That's what I do with my street and documentary photography, it's a tool for observation. It's like a notebook, I use the camera to remember things and observe things. It goes both ways. You can use visual art to show your own culture, or you can be an explorer and use visual art to show your experience to the people who are far away. It's a bridge between cultures, and it's extremely useful. Why I got into photography very deeply, is because when I was a kid, I always loved looking at pictures of other places. I have always been so fascinated by these photographs, they could have been nature photographs, landscapes or animals, or historical photographs of events or places. I could learn from these things.”
“I have a very bad memory for details. I noticed a lot of the time I remember things through photographs that I made in certain situations. It's funny, when I was back home in Italy last November, I met with some high school friends. We were talking about school trips or whatever, and I was astonished by the amount of details I could not remember. I literally had no recollection of these things, my brain is blank. So when I pick up my camera, it's my tool to remember things. If I have to remember a certain episode of my life, and I happened to photograph it, my brain is like a big library of pictures. I can remember a picture, and it brings me back to the place. If someone asks me "How is Sydney?" I don't think I can give it justice just by words. I will be like, here are 250 pictures. Look at them. That's what Sydney is.”
“It's like my diary, a way to engage with the world and the chaos of the world and try to make sense of it visually.
I take a picture and it looks balanced, compared to how chaotic the world is, it is a way of self-defence against the overwhelming chaos.”
Through Their Eyes
“I don't use photography as a way to showcase my sense of belonging. I use photography as a way of exploration. As a form of exercise.
A lot of my photographic observations, at least at the moment, are happening outside of my personal life. So it's related to me using photographs as a diary and having a lot of small observations. There is no hierarchy. If a photograph comes out nicely from the compositional point of view, and something interesting is happening, not just people walking, the photo is good enough for me. Because there are so many of them, it can be like a collage. It creates the idea of how my brain works, things that capture my attention. If I had to follow your prompt, honestly, I wouldn't know exactly what to do. I don't use photography to convey a concept.
I use photography to convey observations. An observation can happen to have a hidden concept, but I don't try to force a concept if it is not there. That's not how I operate, I wouldn't know how to start.”
