Anastasia in a garden during a spring festival in Valpolicella, Verona, Italy, April 2011.
Her mother Alice, a street performer, was working as a kid party entertainer, that day, so I spent with her a couple of hours, pushing the stroller with her brother Andrej inside, who was recently born.
I remember that Anastasia was talking about her early childhood in Tuscany, where she lived in the countryside with her mother and her father. She told me she missed a bit that house.
Her parents split up when she was 9 years old, and her father, a musician and street performer, went back to live to UK, were he came from.
Anastasia and a different factory of memories
Verona and Milan, Italy
2010 – 2015
Anastasia is now 17 years old and she lives in Verona, northern Italy.
She is daughter of street performers.
Anastasia used to live in an apartment that the owner Vincenzo, professor of physics, decided to share with people who find themselves in a state of housing emergency. Her mother Alice, her brother Andrej and their dog Leo were among them.
She now lives on her own in a flat she rent with her boyfriend Andrea.
The photographic project, which initially aimed to investigate an alternative way of living, a sort of cohousing during a period of great economic uncertainty and existential fragility, was then transformed into the story of the delicate and difficult transition from childhood to adolescence and adulthood, lived in an atypical contest.
Anastasia and Vincenzo in his apartment, winter 2013.
When I met Anastasia, in 2009, she was 11 years old and she had just arrived in Verona, Northern Italy, with her mother Alice and their dog Leo. They didn't have any place to go, they were staying in a youth hostel, looking for a better accommodation. After a few days they were in a bar when they met Vincenzo, a professor of physics who had decided to share his big apartment with people who found themselves in a state of housing emergency. He asked them to join him for a few days - they stayed for 6 years.
Anastasia on her temporary bed in the living room, summer 2010.
This is one of the first pictures I took since I met Anastasia the first time. It happened in a bar. I was drinking a glass of wine with some friends, Vincenzo was among them. I noticed that girl who passed to say hello, and I asked Vincenzo who she was. He told me her story and that she was living in his place. I was fascinated by her, she wasn't shy at all and she projected a peculiar strength in her voice, in her face, in her eyes.
Anastasia crying on Vincenzo's bed, late September 2010.
She never told me why she was crying that afternoon. When I arrived there and saw her like that I felt really confused… I had nearly no experiences with children, but I thought it would be great to have some ice-cream to eat on bed. I went out and came back in 5 minutes. It worked, at least that day.
