Description
OD Photo Prize 2025 | Judges Pick
Cinzia Laliscia [1999] is an Italian photographer whose practice delves into intimacy through visual storytelling. Her work is grounded in themes of nostalgia, the unconscious, and the profound bond between humanity and nature. For her, creating images and narratives is a cathartic act—an essential process of emotional reflection and self-exploration.
Artist Statement | “Finalmente posso andare” — “Finally, I can go” — whispers of a realm within the soul, a suspended and parallel world where goodbyes are left unspoken. In 2020, during Italy’s first COVID-19 lockdown, I lost my paternal grandmother and my aunt. Though their passing was unrelated to the virus, the pandemic became an insurmountable barrier—one that kept me physically separated from my family and emotionally distant from the rituals of farewell. My grandmother lived just half an hour away, yet I was confined to my home with my brother, grieving the loss of two essential parts of ourselves. The inability to say goodbye in person left a wound I couldn’t quite comprehend. To navigate this emptiness, I turned to creative expression. I grew up surrounded by nature—my maternal grandparents live in the Umbrian mountains, in a rural village of only nine inhabitants. That landscape, both wild and familiar, always offered me comfort. In its stillness, I felt a language I could understand and speak. During lockdown, while confined indoors, I began revisiting my photographic archive. It became a way to reconnect with the natural world, to reach toward a sense of peace, and to start composing a visual diary. When restrictions eased, I continued building this narrative—instinctively and intimately—through the landscapes of Loreno and the familiar corners of my hometown, Spoleto. Almost without realizing it, I was crafting a parallel world: a space outside of time, filled with “non-places” and dreamlike fragments. Through these imagined geographies, I could gently face the difficult reality I was living. Light emerged as the connective thread between the images—a silent witness to grief, memory, and transformation. Even after five years, their absence is a presence I carry every day. It lives in the spaces we once shared, in the rituals now stilled, in the quiet moments that catch me unaware. In this ongoing act of remembering, I continue to find solace—nurtured by the land, by light, and by the lingering echoes of those I’ve lost.
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