How were your passions, photography and medicine, born?
I was a silent child, I always spoke in a low voice, only I could hear what I said. I believe that photography has been the functional tool for my adaptation to the world, a way to reach others. In medicine, I was interested in the psychotherapeutic path which, in some way, completed the photographic approach. Photography is something that I create together with others, it is born in what in Gestalt Psychology is called “contact border”, the physical and metaphorical meeting place between oneself and the world.
Why are you interested in adolescence?
Skateboarding was my first love, my life partner. One day a few years ago I saw a group of kids diving from the Lion’s Head (this is the name of the Catania lava cliff). In those dives I could see the light-heartedness that I knew they would lose with the transition to adulthood. They were skaters, like I had been, I wanted to follow them and photograph them. They agreed. By observing them I tried to delve into the suffering that everyone in that transitional age had in common. I spent six years with them. In the meantime I graduated with a thesis on the functioning of brain activity during adolescence and on how, in this phase of life, we create our social reality.
What brought you to Lithuania?
I have always worked in Italy, especially in Sicily. Going away from home allowed me to investigate adolescence seeking a more universal interpretation. I chose Lithuania, a post-Soviet country that suffered half a century of dictatorship and today has the highest suicide rate in Europe, a consequence of that social and cultural wound which is a true collective trauma. I came into contact with associations that organize after-school programs and summer camps, mainly for children and teenagers who come from difficult social contexts. I was able to participate in these holidays among woods and lakes where in the evening we gather around the fire to express thoughts and emotions.
What did you understand about these boys and girls?
I observed children, even very young ones, who expressed their suffering with an uncommon naturalness. The trip was an opportunity to reflect on the meaning of suffering in adolescence, that phase of life in which pain no longer represents an external entity that attacks us casually, but is a response to who we are and the adaptation we must undergo to stay in the world and reach adulthood.
«Boys and girls of all ages are guests of the summer camps near Vilnius, in Lithuania and, among woods and lakes, in the evening we meet around the fire to express thoughts and emotions». This photographic work became a book, Mal de mer, published by Cesura Publish. Lithuania. 2022-2023. © Claudio Majorana / CESURA
How was it received?
There was a lot of openness and encouragement to the exchange on the part of the organizers. I organized small photography workshops for the children, this made everything much easier. We worked on the self-portrait with collages: they cut pieces of newspaper to compose their more or less abstract self-portrait and this helped to reveal their identity, how they represented themselves, what idea they had of themselves. It really felt like psychotherapy.
Do you think it was for them?
I do not know. When you come from a difficult background the outside world can be very scary. These kids come from complex situations, I knew the stories of many, for many this experience is an opportunity: to be in a neutral space, to experience a sort of normality, to be in relationships with many peers and with adults who protect you.
«These kids come from complex contexts, for many this experience is an opportunity: to be in a neutral space, to experience a sort of normality». Lithuania. 2022-2023. © Claudio Majorana / CESURA
As an artist he is an observer of human behavior, as a psychotherapist he must treat them. How do you reconcile these two attitudes?
My life revolves around my training as a psychotherapist. Photography has become a way of going through personal issues that I can understand and metabolize through a different point of view, that of the people I meet and photograph. Both disciplines help to explore the human soul. It seems to me that they coexist and enrich each other.
Will he continue to dedicate himself to adolescence?
I don’t think so, now I’m working on romantic relationships – it’s also the topic of my specialization thesis in psychotherapy. It seemed almost inevitable to me since there is a very strong connection with adolescence, the time in which we draw ourselves into the encounter with the other, we discover desire and love, the first time and disappointment. I started from my personal experience, from memories, from my first time, and I asked myself what it means to love, what a relationship is, how we experience desire. Years ago I saw two films by Korean director Kim Ki-duk, Breath And Iron 3. In both characters they experience their need for love in an extremely profound and free way. For my photographic investigation I had to go to Korea – intentionally knowing little or nothing about that country, but preserving the sensations that those films had left in me – to investigate the depth of love. And I did.