Giulio Ghirardi was born and raised in Parma, Italy. He took his master in architecture at Politecnico di Milano and lived in Strasbourg for a while. After his diploma he switched completely to photography but always with architecture in mind, constantly influencing my work, which is characterized by strong and clear lines. In the future he’d like to be considered an artist more than a photographer and switch to more fine arts projects.
KALTBLUT: What does photography mean to you?
Giulio: Photography has always meant excitement and escapism to me. The moment when you realize you are taking the right photo is comparable to the greatest satisfactions of life. I like it because, unlike architecture or of other professions, the result is almost immediate and I do not like to wait too much. Planning a thing can last for years, but the shot and development just a few hours, and this for me is a great mental workout. Photography is finding a moment in which part of the world that is narrated, can excite others, but most of all yourself.
KALTBLUT: You photograph both places and people, how do you approach each?
Giulio: Being an architect obliges me to always see a form. I believe that not only built buildings can be considered architecture, but also a human figure or a natural landscape can be defined as architecture. This fact helps me shuffle the cards on the table and approach different subjects in the same way. There also exists a special form of mental architecture in me that I like to call psychogeography.
KALTBLUT: How do you choose your project themes?
Giulio: The similarities that arise in a photographic project are the things that interest me the most. I am also interested in finding similarities between two photos or a photo and another object /aesthetics even coming from a different field than the one concerning photography.
It helps me a lot to find a logical thread in archivial work. I’m not usually, and I should improve this, planning a project significantly, unless it is made immediately explicit with observation.
I believe that analyzing my work, and photographic products resulting from it, lets me take an analogy in the brain, on how everything comes to reconnect, and the title that springs can come from different areas, especially literature and art.
KALTBLUT: Are you working on something right now?
Giulio: I’m working mainly on commissioned reportage projects, and I wish I had more time to spend, even with analog equipment, in personal projects.
I’m shooting a project on three Italian Renaissance theaters, and a landscape project concerning the space between the mountains and the sea, particularly the area in Tuscany,between the marble quarries and the sea below.
Interview by Emma E. K. Jones
cargocollective.com/giuliorojerghirardi/
