The first story
The first life to be narrated
Mattia Cacciatori
A travel-long thought
Humans at its centre
South America, its beginning.
I. Hi Mattia, introduce yourself to the world!
Mattia, 27 years old, born in Verona where I live from time to time. I have travelled around Europe with my father since I was a child. When I got older, I travelled around many places in the world: Turkey, Mongolia, China, Kenya, Tanzania, Ecuador, Palestine, Israel, Jordan, Serbia, United States, Sudan, Ethiopia, Egypt.
As a man, I am about to leave for South America.
What I love: mountain, silence, animals, my Fuji XT1, my hundreds of books, simplicity, and praying.
Degree in Development Cooperation, I have also discovered my passion for photography. Mongolia and my first, real photo woke up my heart.
From there, I became conscious that that was my path. By learning and making efforts, I have become a storyteller with my small “black box” in my hands. I started to narrate the world through its lenses, its films and its sensor.
And here are all my trips: the sequence of meetings, looks, emotions, smiles, wounds, punches in the stomach. And again vomits caused by tear gases, laughs with a beer, glistening eyes for the great satisfactions and happiness, tears for the sufferings and injustices seen.
II. I heard that on January 4th you will leave for an epic trip! Tell us from where this trip will start and which countries you intend to cross.
Yes, on January 4th I leave for a trip, called project Travel Karma, which will represent a passage to a new life. I leave Italy to sediment thoughts, ideals and certainties.
I will jump on a plane and travel to Argentina, then straight to Cape Horn. I will cross Chile and then will stop to work in a farm for a few months. Then I will restart the path towards North. I will probably continue along all the Chilean coast, then Bolivia, Perù, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Cuba, Guatemala, Mexico and then up: direction Alaska.
But I have no certainties. I will not stop until my feet will be tired. When mind, heart and stomach will align I will take a ship or an airplane to come back. I don’t know where I will be that day.
III. What convinced you to leave again and, more importantly, what pushed you not to care of fears that this experience might bring with it?
Injustice pushes me to leave again.
I leave to study South America, Campesinos movements, Liberation Church. Look into the eyes injustices that oppress humble and pure people. Point my finger against West and American imperialism. Point my finger to our lifestyle and to our hypocrisy. Mine included.
I leave because I want my radicalism to take root in me. I leave because I will then return and dedicate myself to others with all myself. But before doing that I want to structure a thought, my thought, which still has questions to be answered.
IV. If someone tries to look for you online, s/he will find immediately your pictures, your perspectives on the places you have visited. What do you see in what surrounds you and makes you say “here we are, let’s shoot a picture”?
Before every shutter click, like other choices that mark my life, there is always a personal and deep research. The stories that I tell make me dive in many life experiences, in many bodies and souls.
I have never shot a picture for the sake of it. If I do not “breathe” and live what the subjects are breathing and living, I struggle in picking what is being given to me.
Sometimes I have my photo camera in my backpack and some days pass by before I shoot the first picture. But when I start, I shoot reality in front of me without too much manipulation.
V. Which image will you have in your head when, in your trip, will think back at home in Verona?
If I think of home, I think of Lessinia, the hilly area above Verona. I imagine my dog, Susy Q, running on mountain lawns. I imagine life on mountain tops. A life of peace and silence, which I often seek and would like to share with people who surround me and those who will in the future.
Thanks a lot Mattia for sharing yourself and your project!
If you wish to follow Mattia, his pictures and his stories in project Travel Karma, check out his website and his Facebook page!
