In the summer of 2015, I photographed the bark of the centuries-old plane tree that stands majestically in the Guastalla garden in Milan. Many years ago, that mighty tree stood within the little garden of the primary school I attended: Milan’s first Steiner school, in Via Francesco Sforza. Beneath the plane tree’s reassuring, protective shade, I played with my classmates during our long, carefree school breaks. That tree watched us grow. This was how the Tree Maps series began.
I had taken that first photograph on film, with the old Hasselblad 500 CM my father had lent me. I had not even intended to make a series. I was interested only in that plane tree. The idea for the series came later. At first, I continued working with film, before adopting a combination of methods: some photographs were taken on film and others using digital technology. From the outset, I had chosen to retain the slide’s black border, a distinctive feature of the analogue frame and of the first photograph in the Tree Maps series. To preserve the series’ aesthetic coherence—and, above all, a trace of its origins—I decided to reproduce the border of that first photograph on all the images, including the digital ones. This is why the same frame numbers, 7 and 8, recur in most of the photographs.
Although they seem motionless to us, trees are living, dynamic organisms. Their stillness is only apparent. From the earliest times, and at every latitude, humanity has endowed trees with profound symbolic meanings: spiritual, sacred and religious. The tree symbolises life’s continuous, unstoppable transformation and its cycle of death and rebirth.
The tree connects the three levels of the cosmos: the ground below, into which its roots descend; the Earth’s surface, from which its trunk rises; and the sky, towards which its branches and crown reach, drawn by the light of the Sun. The very structure of the tree evokes an ascent towards the sky and a striving for transcendence. Within itself, the tree brings together all the elements: water, circulating in its sap; earth, becoming part of its body through the roots; air, nourishing its leaves; and fire, which its wood can feed.
I like to observe trees. To contemplate them. I am fascinated by the shapes and colours visible on their bark: they make me think of ancient maps of mysterious, fantastical territories.
Milan, March 2023
