Absolutely. Symbiosis is the future, dare I say the way forward. Without adequate strategies to coexist with the environment, a species is doomed to extinction and extinction. Our technology increasingly tests nature’s ability to regenerate. Achieving harmony and perhaps even unity between ourselves and others is the most important test we must endure in this era. The women of Sundsbø embody an evolutionary leap, they are creatures that do not simply coexist with the elements. They want to live in symbiosis, being their own element. All this is less imaginative than it seems. This is not just a romantic vision of nature a la Caspar David Friedrich. That’s science. Think of the recent book in which Carlo Rovelli, a physicist, reasons for the equality of all things, showing us that “electrons and minds, rocks and laws, judgments and galaxies are not fundamentally different from each other.”
Are there any previous editions of the Pirelli Calendar that particularly impressed you?
I really like Peter Lindbergh, for his crisp black and white, so I wanted to mention one of his three calendars, perhaps the first, which dates from 1996. But in the end I chose the first, the calendar of Robert Freeman, the Beatles and Swinging London photographer who I instinctively associate with the Calendar myth. I would also single out a particular image from the issue, where half the shot is occupied by a blue expanse of sea and in the foreground is a beach with long afternoon shadows stretching across the sand. The woman, in a very normal two-piece swimsuit, is in the center of the frame but small, almost in the distance. It seems more like a memory than a real person, as does every photo, in its simplicity and wrenching immediacy.
What does the calendar mean in this day and age?
His physique. And I don’t mean the female body it represents, but the paper used. In the years of its birth, the fact that the Calendar is an object was already established. As time goes by, this physique increasingly becomes an added value. In an era where even art tends to experience dematerialization, becoming virtual, intangible and odorless, a calendar is still paper, an object whose shape and dimensions have their own meaning. It’s not surprising that photographers don’t just create images but also take part in creating physical objects that are always different every year. I believe the secret lies in his physical qualities. Perhaps in the past this was simply dictated by the desire to create a beautiful object that would stand out from the many calendars hanging on the blackened walls of the workshop. Today he stands out because he continues to believe that the tactile elements of an image should be preserved. It seems trivial, but it is the central question that defines our time. Think about how many people store personal photos, memories of their lives, in the digital memory of their mobile phones, unlike in the past when the same images were collected in family albums. Think about how valuable and important those albums are. They are in every home and are cared for with respect and devotion, similar to ancestral altars in Japanese homes. The physical experience of an image is a fundamental part of a person’s spiritual formation. The fact that images have become so immaterial is not good for anyone, in fact I think it poses great risks such as increasing difficulty in accepting one’s own body or underestimating the consequences of physical movements on others or even ourselves.
