INTRODUCING VALERIA PICERNO
I am originally from Milano, Italy, where I was born and grew up. I have been in New York for 2 years and a half now, and I like to go back to Italy once in a while, I guess I like both, or better, I started appreciating Milano more when I moved away. I’m 24. I started taking pictures when I was 11 years old and I went on a trip to India with my parents. I shot 6 films of black and white in that occasion. After that I kept taking pictures at punk and hardcore shows until I was 16 and realized that there were more subjects out there. I need to archive memories, keep track of things I see, that’s pretty much why I started, to make sure that I wouldn’t forget. Like a diary. I tend to report things as I see them, and let the pictures open to personal interpretation. At the same time I am very fascinated by ordinary surrealism, subjects that you encounter everyday, in a way that you have never seen them. I started when I was 11, so yeah, major changes happened in my life since then :) and I am sure that my pictures have evolved with me, my eye has refined, I look for different things comparing to when I started out. If I had never taken pictures I would have never met somebody that played a very important role in my life. I don’t really care about cameras. I realized that the moment I stopped worrying about buying cameras is the moment when I really started taking pictures. I took this picture after a demolition party that took place in Paris in June 2008, where the guests had hammers and helmets and could demolish a hotel that would have been re-designed by Philip Stark. It was a fun night, and only the morning after, we heard that somebody fell from a window that night and died. That’s why I somehow associate this picture with this other one. I love William Eggleston and his attention to details, the way he tells stories, the calm in his pictures, the colors.
