Veronica Barbato, Tua Sorella, 2024

The 1980s: reflux, armed struggle and heroin. Telling an increasingly popular theme of social unrest, rebellion, drugs and freedom. This is my sister’s story. At the age of twenty-three, she committed suicide after a period of drug addiction. I am giving her a second life, using the language and dimension of street art, making her travel the world, as she had no way to do.
I launched a communication campaign through billboards to make her an icon. Exploiting the fundamental role of art in defining perception. A photographic exhibition in constant motion, “on the road.” In the photographs I insert bright colors to represent hallucinations, phrases from his secret diaries, with glitter referencing the false illusion of drugs. The colors are a celebration of her life. This project started from a letter received five years after her death. It was undoubtedly her: the same words, the same way of expressing herself through another person, acting as an intermediary. This letter saved me. The project is the result of social redemption, making Mary the protagonist of a new life. I wanted to make a dream possible, giving her the magic she never believed she possessed but that I saw. I broke the rules with courage, including love and pride for my sister, and with the same pride I told her story, giving her dignity. Now Maria is no longer a nobody, but the sister of many. With her my childhood never lost its magic, with her it never lost its drama.