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Fernweh
It all begins with a feeling and the idea of a feeling.
Fernweh is a German word that can be translated into farsickness. A longing for distant places. And a yearning for travel.
Fernweh is a German word that can be translated into farsickness. A longing for distant places. And a yearning for travel.
Through these photographs, I explore the spaces between affection and absence, between time remembered and time imagined. I began to see that feeling lost isn’t always a problem to solve—it can also be a place to rest. A place where we allow ourselves to feel without needing resolution.
Fernweh is a meditation on distance between generations, between selves, and between the past and the present. And maybe, in that space, there’s something quietly magical about simply allowing it all to exist.
Fernweh is a meditation on distance between generations, between selves, and between the past and the present. And maybe, in that space, there’s something quietly magical about simply allowing it all to exist.
This project began as a quiet return. I went back to Italy, to my nonna’s house, drawn by the need to reconnect with familiar objects, colours, and memories that had begun to feel foreign. What I found wasn’t just nostalgia, but a layered sense of dislocatin, something more complex, more human.
As my nonna shared stories of her past, many from times before I was born, I noticed how often they repeated, how they clung to moments long gone. In her voice, I heard longing. And strangely, I began to feel it too. I started to ask myself: Is it possible to grieve for a life you never lived? Can someone else’s memories become part of your own emotional landscape?
That’s when Fernweh (a German word for a deep longing for a place you've never been) felt like the only fitting name. This work became less about a physical location and more about navigating the emotional terrain of memory, loss, and belonging. It’s about grief that doesn’t follow a script, and the quiet ache of being somewhere that feels both yours and not yours at all.
As my nonna shared stories of her past, many from times before I was born, I noticed how often they repeated, how they clung to moments long gone. In her voice, I heard longing. And strangely, I began to feel it too. I started to ask myself: Is it possible to grieve for a life you never lived? Can someone else’s memories become part of your own emotional landscape?
That’s when Fernweh (a German word for a deep longing for a place you've never been) felt like the only fitting name. This work became less about a physical location and more about navigating the emotional terrain of memory, loss, and belonging. It’s about grief that doesn’t follow a script, and the quiet ache of being somewhere that feels both yours and not yours at all.
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