Sana Sana

PHOTOGRAPHY

Nov 8

Photographer Rosa Lacavalla’s project, Sana Sana describes the gradual and careful process of recovering from emotional traumas as well as a journey towards healing that starts on the inside and ends outward.

Photography Rosa Lacavalla

Sana Sana (Heal Heal) / Colita de rana (Frog’s tail). Si no sanas hoy (If you don’t heal today) / Sanarás mañana (You will heal tomorrow).

These verses are taken from a popular South American chant sung by mothers to comfort their children when they get hurt. A simple song becomes a ritual, born out of love, and its words have acquired a magical belief: if you repeat these verses out loud, you will start to heal.

The need to give a visual form to specific feelings and their resolution brings the author to face them and give them a shape, albeit metaphorical. It makes her able to free herself from that weight. For this reason, the images take on different meanings, becoming symbolic translations of feelings, moments of anxiety and comfort, uneasiness and quiet. When we begin to recognise our emotions while we are in the throes of emotional suffering we are already on the way to recovery and it allows us to welcome our feelings with some degree of awareness.

Documenting a shamanic rite towards emotional healing and personal growth, the images dance between the subtleties of every day and bring the spectator the comforting feeling of a healing ritual passing by an intricate and often rough path like rock, with the presence of shaded areas, where the cause of the problems and the key to solving them are hidden.

Sanarás mañana, she repeats to herself, and there will be no more reason to live this “sad melody”.

“Sana Sana, Colita de rana. Si no sanas hoy. Sanarás mañana.”

“Heal Heal, Frog’s tail. If you don’t heal today, you will heal tomorrow.”

About Rosa

Rosa Lacavalla (b. 1993, Barletta) is an Italian photographer and visual artist based in Bologna. Graduated in Art Graphic (2014) and Photography (2017) at the Fine Arts Academy in Bologna she spent part of her studies in England at Coventry University and in 2016 she worked as a trainee for the collective Cesura.

Her work entitled Sana Sana won the 3rd Place for Emergentes 2021 - International Photography Awards Encontros Da Imagem (Portugal) and has been shortlisted by Safelight Paper, Getxo Photo, Cahier d’images, Fresh Eyes Talents, Verzasca Foto Festival, Camera Work, PEP - New Talents. It was also featured on Phases Mag, Der Greif, Grandmama’s Print, Museè Magazine, C41 Magazine.

In 2023, Sana Sana became a photobook dummy developed during Folio International Online Photobook Masterclass organised by PhMuseum and with tutors like Rocco Venezia, Tommaso Parrillo (Witty Books) and Giulia Boccarossa.

Her visual research was displayed in group exhibitions and festivals such as Liquida Photo Festival (Italy, 2023), RAKFAF - Ras Al Khaimah Fine Arts Festival (UAE, 2023), Encontros Da Imagem (Portugal, 2022), Castelnuovo Fotografia (Italy, 2022), Verzasca Foto Festival (Switzerland, 2021), FotoLimo Festival (France, 2020), PEP - New Talents (Germany, 2020), Funzilla EXPO (Italy, 2020), PIP Festival and Lishui PhotoFestival (China, 2019).

To see more of her work, follow her on Instagram

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Sana Sana

Photographer Rosa Lacavalla’s project, Sana Sana describes the gradual and careful process of recovering from emotional traumas as well as a journey towards healing that starts on the inside and ends outward.

“Sana Sana, Colita de rana. Si no sanas hoy. Sanarás mañana.”

“Heal Heal, Frog’s tail. If you don’t heal today, you will heal tomorrow.”

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