Giulia Menicucci

I have walked barefoot in my family's garden through many seasons, feeling and seeing the changes in the plants and on my skin. While climbing trees and hiding in the many bushes, I've watched the surroundings change and the memories accumulate. In a game of hide-and-seek with the past, I have always searched for the stories hidden in every corner of the garden, a place that carries the roots of my father's family, whom I have never met and about whom my father has never told me anything.

Now, in my twenty-seventh spring, I have started an email correspondence with my father, with the aim of understanding that part of the family and the events he never talks about. As we write to each other, we use photography as a common ground where we meet and document the process of getting to know each other.

‘twenty-seven springs’ became a project of quiet images and portraits, marked by the constant action of my father and I climbing my grandfather's last peach tree at the end of the family garden.

As we unfold memories and pose in front of the camera, we both reveal vulnerability, seeking empathy and understanding, allowing the medium to become a means of communication and connection, reclaiming a relationship covered by silence and unspoken feelings.

Through the vulnerability of creating this project, I discovered how many people are in the situation of not knowing their parents, their past and the events that shaped it.  Through my personal narrative, I want to invite people to discover how photography can be a bridge for generational silence, and how through sharing, and especially storytelling, it is possible to change the course of a relationship.