I like memories

Shanti Simonetti

What pieces or projects have you been working on lately?
I’m starting a project that combines photography and fairy tales, but I don’t want to say any more because otherwise I won’t finish it.

What did you learn (or unlearn) while working on it?
I have learned that I must not talk about it, otherwise it’s as if I had already done it. It is something that recurs in my life: the more I talk, the less I produce.

What words, ideas or emotions were running through your head?
Definitely everything that never happened, that remains locked in my head and can come out not as I thought it, but in other ways.

I like memories.

Were there any conversations, movies, music, or books that made their way into that work?
A film, a book, and an album that have had a profound impact on my way of seeing things around me, respectively:

Sleep and Ideal by Dead Can Dance
Gummo by Harmony Korine
The Clown by Heinrich Böll

If your life were a movie this month, what would it be called and who would write the soundtrack?
The film I would choose is a film by Lee Chang-dong with a soundtrack made by Sparklehorse.

Recommend one or more artists you follow who inspire you, and tell us what you like most about their work or their way of working.
Photographers who have definitely inspired and helped me in the process are Larry Clark, Davide Sorrenti, and many others, including artists in general such as Carmelo Bene.