Francesca Todde, A Sensitive Education

“Yet it can happen, suddenly, unexpectedly, and most frequently in the half-light-of-glimpses, that we catch sight of another visible order which intersects with ours and has nothing to do with it.[…] We come upon a part of the visible which wasn’t destined for us. Perhaps it was destined for nightbirds, reindeer, ferrets, eels, whales…” John Berger

Tristan is a bird educator; he prepares them to work with humans in theatre, dance or film documentaries and develops “ornithotherapy” sessions with them for detainees and people in distress. When he was a child, in the forest behind his parents’ house, Tristan noticed that if he remained immobile for a long time, the animals would come out of the vegetation. This practice of slow approaching at each other’s rhythms remains the basis of Tristan’s educational method even today. His technique is based on the understanding of the sensitivity of birds, which is broader than ours and extended to areas that we have partly forgotten in the course of evolution. The position of the body, the intensity of the gaze, or even just the intentions that animate us, have great perceptive importance for birds. Following Tristan, we can enter their world of minimal, subtle and incorporeal events.

The book A Sensitive Education was published in January 2020 by the publishing house Départ Pour l’Image, of which the author is also co-founder, in 300 hand numbered copies.

Francesca Todde is a photographer and publisher, living in Milan and working between Italy and France. Among her publications: 6Mois, DLui di Repubblica, Le Monde, M le Magazine du Monde, Zadig, Granta, Yet Magazine. Among her exhibitions: Officine Fotografiche Milano, BYOPaper! Arles Les Rencontres de la Photographie, Looking On al MAR di Ravenna, Reflexions, CAMERA, Torino. In 2020 her project “A Sensitive Education” has been shortlisted for the PHMuseum Photography Grant. With the artist Luca Reffo she founded the independent publishing house Départ Pour l’Image. www.francescatodde.com | www.departpourlimage.com