Gomma Photography Grant 2021
Silence is sexy
Photographer
Martina Cirese
Silence is sexy
31 Jan, 2022
'Silence is sexy' is an erratic diary on detachment and desire, mapping my own passage through late adolescence to womanhood. I moved to Berlin in March 2015. Attracted by the visionary and nonconformist nature of the city, I found my-self plunged into a primitive and Dionysian counterculture. As I explored the most transgressive german sex clubs for the first time, to portray and question my encounters became my obsession. Does polyamory fit with contemporary western society? Can hedonism solve the contradictions of monogamy? Friends; lovers; strangers; figures: these make up the subjects of my research, as they weave their journeys, transitioning from one state to the next, exploring the ambivalence of human desire and experiencing the conflict between ego and reality. The ongoing series combines photos in diptychs from the journals I collected since my arrival in Berlin until today. I took portraits from a displaced metropolis where the days are short and the nights are endless.
About the photographer
Martina Cirese
Martina Cirese is an Italian photographer born in Rome, 1988. She enrolled into the ISFCI (Institute of Photography), in Rome, 2008. In 2011 she was given a scholarship to complete her Master’s degree in Contemporary History at the Paris-Sorbonne University, focusing her studies on the raise of Totalitarian regimes. Since 2012 she begun to work as a freelance photographer, featuring cover stories on L’Espresso and Internazionale. Her first long term project ‘Asankojo’ has been acknowledged by several awards nominations. In 2014 she was awarded a year-long scholarship at FABRICA, Benetton's communication research centre, where she has been the selected photographer for the Unhate Foundation - United Colors of Benetton global social campaigns. Her works have been exhibited across Europe and featured in international publications including The Guardian, Time, National Geographic, GEO and Burn magazine among others. After several years spent between Rome and Berlin, since 2017 she is based in Paris.
