The remains of the Berlin Wall are tangible evidence both of collective memory and individual memories. They fascinated me immediately, from the very first time I visited them. It was the end of December 2001. I had never been in Berlin before. When I saw the remains of the Wall I instantly had the idea for this series. It was conceived walking and lingering in front of the few remnants of the long concrete barrier which for almost thirty years had divided the city. First of all I visited the East Side Gallery (in Mühlenstraße); then the section of Wall opposite the Berlin Wall Documentation Center (in Bernauer Straße); finally the section within the Invaliden cemetery and the few pieces still linked in Potsdamer Platz. At that time I wasn’t using digital photographic equipment. I used an old Contax 35 mm with a galilean viewfinder and interchangeable[AV1]  lens for the visual notes and the first studies. Back in Milan, having examined the results, I determined to carry out the project. In four successive journeys between the springs of 2003 and 2009 (the twentieth anniversary year of the fall of the Wall) I took the final versions of the photographs with a large format camera on 4” x 5” plates. A willingness to cultivate the memory of that lacerating division seems to manifest itself between the crevices, peeling and cracks of the sections of Wall Berliners wanted to keep yet simultaneously there’s a desire to eradicate the memory by covering the longest section still remaining in the city with murals, the East Side Gallery. The scratches, chips and splits still obvious in some sections, signalling the removal of Wall fragments destined for souvenir shops, seem to bear witness to the violent eruption of the market economy in eastern Germany (or perhaps just the ancient, instinctive human tendency to exploit available resources). At certain points the gouging has been so deep that the iron bars of the reinforced concrete are exposed or so that it’s even possible to crawl through from one side to the other. Finally, we see the impartial effect of the weather on everything, modifying and consuming solid evidence of human endeavour. The dominant themes of this research (and of my work in general) are time and memory: the intangible dimensions of experience which reveal themselves in tangible signs, deposited and layered on the surface of things and which photography is able to discover and transfigure. As mentioned Die Berliner Mauer was achieved using a large format camera: photographic apparatus suited to a reflective state of mind and meticulous attention to detail. In addition, the large size of the originals ensures a fine reproduction of detail, allowing hyper-realistic results and even trompe l'œil effects. These aesthetic and technical choices are consistent with the poetic nature of my work. Indeed, I am convinced that the faithful photographic reproduction (or at least what appears to be such) of several fragments of reality, isolated from their environment, transfigures reality itself. It is subjected to a process of estrangement: the elements of the world reproduced photographically appear to be something new and almost unexpected. It is precisely this ability to see known and familiar things afresh which constitutes one of the most vital aspects of the expressive potential of photography and one reason why this magical language of illusion is so fascinating.