RESEARCH IS MY BREATH
By Chris Spain
If you think of Barbara Bozzini you have to think of two colours and one choice. “There’s black and there’s white. There’s a space between them you can never walk through. Black means mere shadow, white means immense light. People usually believe these colours are related to the idea of good and evil. It’s wrong. In the dark you can’t see, but sometimes even light is strong enough to make you feel blind.
It’s a choice. The choice of going ahead without knowing what you will find”.
When Barbara talks, she uses to breath deeply and make long pauses like she’s always trying to find the right word, the perfect circle to contain an idea as a verse of a poem.
Research is her motto and it deals with her many jobs and identities. She’s the chief of a public relations agency, Bozzaproject. But she’s also a graphic designer, a creative director, a digital retoucher, a performer. In a nutshell, an artist. These different activities live together under a universal inspiration. “My passions, that are my jobs, coexist in different spaces which evolve together. Business structure got us used to believe that passion is not linkable to job, and this is a dramatic idea.
You should always try to destroy limits, looking for something new. Without research you die, you cannot live under strict tenets. You gotta breath; stand still like you’re in stagnant water it’s not the right way to do it”.
One year ago Barbara published “The Dark Side and The Light Side”, a 300 pages book based precisely on the idea of research and on the eternal bipolarity between black and white, essentially two different ways to feel alive. The project involved the collaboration of many employees in the graphic and artistic field and took her 3 long years of work and struggles with bureaucracy.
But it’s not a real book.
“It’s a philosophy made up by images, a sensory journey that engages eyes and upsets certainties. As I said before, it’s about the choice between black and white and this is the reason why the book is divided in 2 parts. Every chapter shows their nature and their dangers, their blessings and their convictions.”
Barbara’s world is a chessboard: everyday you have to walk both on the black and the white blocks if you want to checkmate.
Her concept of book has a romantic shade. “I’m often asked why I didn’t realized a site or a blog instead of a book. The truth is that I like the materiality of its pages, the idea of being able to keep it if you liked it or to throw it away if you hate it. It’s like a relationship that everyone has the right to maintain or close forever.”
Now that the book has been published, Barbara is already working on a new project in collaboration with the Canadian photographer Savon, whom she met on Instagram. Yes, Instagram. “Well, I saw his pictures, he saw mine, and that was instant love (she laughs, ndr). I’m joking, we’re just good friends but, in an artistic sense, we are way more. We’re complementary, we’re connected by a spasmodic tension to creativity. When Kenny- Savon’s forename- and me are working together on a photoshoot, the world seems to stop and in that moment of emptiness there’s only our spark . That is the emotion I’m going to communicate in the future.”
The clock strikes 11:05 pm.
I’ve been talking on the phone with Barbara for more than half an hour, but it took me a week before I could get in touch with her. Bozzini has always a tight schedule and I’m curious to know how she manages to handle all her commitments. “My days start with few plans regularly burned by unexpected sparks. It’s up to me to turn them into fire.
Every hitch can be an occasion and I learnt to take it. Of course sometimes I feel scared, but then I repeat to myself to have confidence.
To keep going ahead is the only way to know if you’ll win or you’ll lose. It’s a risk, but if you don’t get in the game, the game is over. Life is too short to stop searching for new inspirations, for new ideas, for new emotions.
Every person can be something extraordinary”.
TheDarkSideAndTheLightSide FB
Amazing book...
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