The collaboration of Federica, a young photographer who investigates the post-adolescent world, which she has recently left behind, and Chiara, who has suffered from anorexia from the age of eighteen, has given rise to Sick Sad Blue. The project developed over time as they and their friendship grew and it took the form of a single corpus, consisting of Federica's photographs and screen-shots of Chiara's Instagram pages. And Sick Sad Blue, Chiara's nickname on Instagram, has become the title of this sort of four-handed ballad, which sounds like a melancholic blues.

Feeling uncomfortable with and in your body is part of every adolescent's development process. An indefinite, insidious malaise especially for girls, who are more susceptible to fashion sirens, and more likely to be looked at and criticised. The doubts about their changing body, whether or not they like themselves, the dangerous desire for comparison, the search for models that have always appeared in front of the mirror and expressed their thoughts by whispering with their friends, protected by the intimacy of their bedrooms and the secret of the pages of a diary now have a different destiny. With the arrival of smartphones and social media, private life has entered a new dimension. In a more or less conscious way, sharing has spread from something practised by a limited group of friends to a group phenomenon that is beyond control, where "group" is a concept which is difficult to define.

The self-portrait, which involves a minimal amount of thought both during and after posing, has become a selfie which is created and instantly spread on the web, in a continuous flow. The reappropriation and the theoretical control over the self-image, positive aspects of the democratization of self-representation, go hand in hand with the risk of developing super-narcissism and other forms of social pressure through the reactions and judgement of the group. Chiara's case offers a radical example of the dual role that online platforms can have. They can be a stage and at the same time a place from which to send out a call for help that does not always reach its destination.

In view of this new practice, more than ever, one important issue is the responsibility carried by her own images or those of other people, a responsibility which is amplified by the increasing amount of images created and the speed with which they are spread. Federica Sasso writes: «From my relationship with Chiara, I have learned the responsibility that comes from creating images, I’ve learned to carefully observe the snapshots that people post on social media, to read their hidden side. All of Chiara's selfies, all she said and ranted about on Facebook and Instagram were a clear cry for help, a need for attention. She was not hungry for food, but for affection and relationships."

Federica Sasso's research focuses on the adolescence and post-adolescence issues of the generation born between the mid-nineties and the year two thousand which grew up with the Internet, in a period of huge changes and uncertainties.

Sick Sad Blue, a close up of her research, helps to understand and, with the right degree of detachment and through multiple point of views, tells a story of "eating disorders" and anorexia that unfortunately happens often and is rarely told from the inside.

Chiara's story, which has now spread beyond the Instagram and Facebook community, allows us to overcome a stereotyped vision and offers a human and compassionate understanding of the disease.

Federica Sasso's work breaks the huit clos in which Chiara battles her demons. By making her see another image of herself and the things that surround her, she opens the game and shuffles the cards, reconnecting her with a reality that is no longer merely virtual.

Her previous important work, which included a series of color portrait photos of adolescents and young adults taken in their daily life environments, behind an appearance that is sometimes polished and an effective formal balance, revealed something much deeper. Capable of grasping in their gestures and expressions the fragility, doubts and expectations of an age full of fears and afflictions, desires and hopes.

With the same sensitivity and the same discretion, Federica Sasso ventured on to the difficult territory of the relationship with Chiara. The way she approaches, feels and looks at others and her unique writing, once again, went beyond a mere documentary, weaving information and emotions together. Between visits to clinics and remote exchanges of messages and photos, between the ups and downs of Chiara's health, their relationship, which was initially work centred, has become a friendship that has enabled that peculiar exchange, based on respect and modesty, on common growth, which gave rise to Sick Sad Blue. A complex puzzle free from judgements, and reproaches, where light-hearted images are followed by ones that are deeper, yet never provocative or accommodating. Images with an emotional power held together by a thin poetic thread poised between small joys and a viral melancholy.

Laura Serani for Sick Sad Blue at Italian Institute of Culture Melbourne (AU)

Sick Sad Blue

Publisher: Fabrica

First edition

Pages: 76

Format: 26 X 32 cm

Language: English / Italian

ISBN: 9788898764952

© FABRICA 2017