Inside a small wooden house, built in the woods of the Piedmont hills, a healer still practices an ancient ritual of peasant origin for healing St. Anthony’s fire, a severe burning condition that traditional medicine often fails to cure quickly.
Fuoco contro fuoco is the formula used to explain the nature of this ancient tradition, which, as homeopathic medicine predicts in which similia similibus curantur, has at its basis a principle of analogy and the exclusive use of natural elements such as wood and flame.
The oral testimony on the nature of the ritual dialogues with a visual research that consists of images obtained with the technique of off-camera photography: frames of the tools necessary for healing and oxidations that, through a relational use of the medium, are produced, marking the photographic paper as if it were infected skin, directly by the healer herself.
Using, in addition, a sequence that incorporates the documentation of healing, natural, religious, and scientific elements, the resulting photographic narrative addresses the now ephemeral nature of ritual and reflects on the theme of knowledge and the inevitable gaps that are produced in the processes of knowledge transmission.
Fuoco contro fuoco is the formula used to explain the nature of this ancient tradition, which, as homeopathic medicine predicts in which similia similibus curantur, has at its basis a principle of analogy and the exclusive use of natural elements such as wood and flame.
The oral testimony on the nature of the ritual dialogues with a visual research that consists of images obtained with the technique of off-camera photography: frames of the tools necessary for healing and oxidations that, through a relational use of the medium, are produced, marking the photographic paper as if it were infected skin, directly by the healer herself.
Using, in addition, a sequence that incorporates the documentation of healing, natural, religious, and scientific elements, the resulting photographic narrative addresses the now ephemeral nature of ritual and reflects on the theme of knowledge and the inevitable gaps that are produced in the processes of knowledge transmission.
The dummy produced was then revised and published by Giostre Edizioni.
Giostre Edizioni
Alessandro Truffa
Urbanautica
Photographs © Alessandro Truffa
Graphic Design:
Michele Biondi
Supervised by:
Alessandro Carrer
Paola Binante
Edition:
15 x 20 cm
144 pp.
Softcover
Thermochromic ink silkscreened cover
Silkscreened cardboard box
Language:
Italian
Printed in July 2022
Limited edition of 10 copies