SEPT 2025
PHOTOBOOK
ART PAPER EDITIONS
19 x 26
170 pages
Bellissima
Bellissima, inspired by the dreamlike photography in Luchino Visconti’s film of the same name, follows Rebecca, a young aspiring model in pursuit of becoming a professional model and showgirl.
Produced over a year, this project documents Rebecca’s experiences, from our first meeting at a casting call near Milan to various auditions across Italy. She began competing at eighteen, encountering fierce critiques and constant rejection—part of the harsh, commodified system of beauty in Italian media. Interwoven with these new images is archival footage from Miss Italia pageants, drawing a direct line to Berlusconi-era TV, which carved out hypersexualized, decorative roles for women. The media imagery from this era, heavily influenced by the "velina" figure, reduced women to background performers doing choreographed routines, staged in skimpy costumes.
The work interrogates the cultural machinery behind these images and asks what happens when beauty becomes something intentionally produced, sold, and endlessly performed. In an industry still driven by patriarchal values, this work exposes how the camera’s gaze never operates neutrally and how beauty—however relentlessly pursued—may still only matter as long as someone is watching.