LA GENERAZIONE SILENZIOSA

Photographed over the course of three years, my senior thesis project is a visual exploration of grief, memory, and resilience. This body of work documents my last living grandparent as he navigates life after the loss of my grandmother. It also captures the untouched interior of my other grandparents’ home, preserved since my grandmother passed away three years ago, just before we prepare to sell it. The house stands frozen in time, filled with remnants of lives once vibrant. Two of my grandparents had Alzheimer’s. In their final years, we would sit at the kitchen table flipping through photo albums. Though they didn’t always remember who I was, they could name everyone in the photographs. That experience is what made me a photographer; I want to remember my life and the people who shaped it. All of my grandparents were Italian immigrants from Sicily who journeyed to the U.S. through Ellis Island in search of the American dream. The title, The Silent Generation, reflects not only their era—a time of resilience and quiet strength—but also the silence that Alzheimer’s brings. As memory fades, so does language, identity, and connection. This project is my response to that silence—a visual archive preserving what memory can no longer hold. Photographed on a Hasselblad using 120mm black and white film.