Photography

In Photography I use my mobile phone, DSLR camera and analogue and experimental processes, like lumen prints and cyanotypes.

Photography is my tool to visualise sensory experiences and emotions regarding the maternal body, including caring, bonding, belonging but also violence and trans generational trauma from a my immigrant female perspective.

Selected Photography Community and curatorial projects with carers.

Photojournaling-2021

At the start of the 3rd lockdown I felt the need to connect with mothers and carers who felt a deep change in their caring roles and the weight of it.As a Founder Mother and advisor of the Maternal Journal project since 2017 I have experienced first-hand how journaling improves people’s wellbeing.

I decided to combine two of my passions, photography and community work facilitating a space for reflexion, connection and exchange using mobile phones' cameras and journaling exercises as guides. In February 2021 with Artists Network Sutton Grants' support this adventure started.We met online, once a week , through workshops I helped them to write and photograph their daily life and I also photographed them.

At the end of the workshops I edited and produced a catalogue of the work, which was published at the end of May 2021.

Young Carers project at St. Mary's Church-2022

Philippa Mesiano, Heritage coordinator and commissioner said:
'Pia was a delight to work with. She immediately understood the brief for Recreating the Art of St Mary's, and captured the history and aesthetic of the church perfectly with her creative and original ideas. She brought so much energy and enthusiasm to the workshops and inspired the young people to create - offering them the opportunity to learn and develop a range of drawing, printing and rubbing techniques. Her art display was an excellent example of space specific curation.'

I SEE YOU-Fringe Arts Festival
2023

This was my first curatorial project. The idea for this street installation was born out of my first online community Photojournaling project with carers in 2021, during the 3rd lockdown. This experience was transforming and it led me to work with other communities of carers. I concluded that the isolation and the invisibility of the caring role didn’t differentiate age, sex, race or social background. I noticed a shared need to assert individual identities, emotional and physical spaces.

‘I See YOU’ called for photographic work from people over the age of 18 who regularly look after a child with additional needs, or a sick, elderly or disabled person. This includes both physical and mental ill health. This project asked participating artists/carers to turn their gaze inwards and focus on their own perspective and their relationships with their own lives and identities, not on the needs of the person they are caring for. This call was open to professional and nonprofessional artists/photographers.

The photographs were installed in 3 different public locations during Fringe Arts Festival 2023.

Public Commissions

THE FABRIC OF SOCIETY
2021-2022

I received my first public Art commission in London Borough of Sutton to create a mural that celebrated the diversity of the area.

I coordinated different BAME groups with local museums and planned and delivered workshops that later informed the final design of my mural mosaic,called The Fabric of Society.

This was a truly community engaged process that included 75 people in the completion of the work from start to finish. Collage and photography techniques were used in the creation of this monumental piece (5 x 2.5 m sq.)

I cut and shaped over 4,000 tiles.

This public artwork is installed in St. Nicholas Shopping Centre in the heart of London Borough of Sutton.

SUTTON'S BLUEPRINT
2023

In December 2023 I was commissioned for a second time by the London Borough of Sutton

to create a cyanotype animated artwork, made up of over 3,500 cyanotype images.

The 9 minutes film was projected on the white weatherboarded rear facade of Whitehall Historic House, the event was attended by 0ver 100 people on the coldest night of the year.

I worked on this piece for 3 months , firstly visiting the Borough's archives, scanning and photographing materials and objects.I also used found footage. Then I filmed around the area historical places and contemporary events. I also choreographed body movements to add to the final piece.

I created a living, breathing, constantly changing representation of where I live, making connections between the past and the present day, through the layering of sequencing of all my images.

My commissioners were so happy with my work that they offered me to exhibit my work and the process in January 2024.