BUTTERFLIES

• Photographer
  stefano schirato

I approached the topic of anorexia after having been impressed by the death of the French top model Isabelle Caro, some years ago. This project touches only part of a broader issue I have already tackled in other works: mental distress. I wanted to get out of that cliché considering anorexia only as a discomfort closely related to the fashion world and emphasize, instead, that the annihilation of the body is only a final gesture and shows deeper roots, often traced in undergone violence or complicated, if not disastrous, relationships with parents. I was invited by a psychiatrist to a center for eating disorders in the province of Como - Italy, and asked to try to catch and represent through photography the fragility of these girls, their inner world, their fears and their desire to succeed. Just like butterflies whose subtle but very colorful wings, alone, allow the caterpillar then to take off.