In a wooden house built in the Piedmont hills, a healer still practices an ancient medicine
today ritual of peasant origin, to heal people from shingles.
Artist: Alessandro Truffa
Project: Fire Against Fire
Book published by Giostre Edizioni (Fuoco contro Fuoco)
“Fire against fire” is the formula used to explain the nature of this ancient tradition, or in Latin “similia similibus curantur”, a sort of homeopathic medicine. The practice of healing is based on one principle of analogy and on the exclusive use of natural elements such as wood and flame. The project tries to reflect on the themes of knowledge and memory in a parallel way, combining the oral history of the healer with a heterogeneous mixture materials: documentary photographs of a rite, plant elements, selfies of some healed patients, microscopic images of herpes zoster cells and healer’s signatures made on photographic paper through the oxidation technique (off-camera photography).
© Alessandro Truffa
curator : Noemi Carrara