The freedom we think we have is, in fact, most of the times something fictitious: from the beaurocracy’s bonds that influence a great part of our lives, to how we chose how to dress, to the information denied to us, often behind our backs.
I chose to portray animals in captivity after a reflection on the concept of freedom. I looked for situations and backgrounds that wouldn’t immediately bring back to the enclosure and the imprisonment, that wouldn’t be too evident and would require a few moments to understand that something is wrong in every image.
Animals in modern zoos are often kept in captivity in spaces delimited by glass walls, called “habitat”, where the natural environments are deliberately re-created with mural drawings, plastic objects, artificial vegetation and light. Very effective for the public, but also extremely alienating for the animals, that very often suffer forms of pathological distress.