Fabiana Sala's Reflection on the Sense of Belonging

Fabiana Sala's photo series 'To Belong', is a photographic project that reflects on the concept of identity, and tells of the troubled path on the search to belonging.

Fabiana Sala is a photographer and Italian Graphic Designer with a degree in visual communication. Having graduated in documentary photography and photo journalism, shehas made publications on national and international newspapers, and participated in numerous group exhibitions in galleries, museums and festivals. Fabiana recently joined the EyeEm Team as a Photo Editor.

In October, she won the Premio Riccardo Prina prize, which will to exhibit her photography work at MAGA – the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Gallarate, Italy.The photo exhibition will open May 5th andrun until June 10th.

Starting in Berlin last November, Fabiana’s project is about photographing people migrating to different cities, which she says is a result of the “millennial” generation. To belong starts from a reflection about the sense of belonging. Fabiana explains that it’s a sort of emotional limbo, something that creates dizziness and confusion. Being scared and anxious about the future, the needs of constantly looking for something, and the feeling of uncertainty, are all feelings that millennials tend to feel.

Fabiana started collecting experiences of young people whoempathize with feelings like these, and the idea was to collect 10-15 people and ask them to share their stories, and then work with pictures and text to visualize their feelings.

Throughout her photo series, Fabiana tries to create stories with people and places, with a heavy use of diptychs. In this case, she explains that she thinks it’s very important to mix portraits and landscapes. She tries to give a sense of dizziness and confusion coming from the fear of not belonging. For the first time, she’s mixing color and black and white.

Fabiana’s work will be exhibited atMAGAin Gallarate, Italy from May 5 to June 10. Find more info about the exhibition here.