A selection of photographs from An island within the island, made in Sardinia Italy (2022-2024) with Francesco Bagattini .

In Sardinia, before World War II, traditional medicine was more widespread than the official one and a form of collective knowledge. Some people, mostly women, were known in their communities for their ability to perform rituals that went beyond mere empirical treatment, blending prayers with gestures of white magic.

During the fall of 2022 and spring of 2024, we traveled through the Sardinian inland wondering what is left, today, of magical healing. The project follows these journeys: the chain of people encountered, roads traveled, questions and insights that led us through a hidden and unexpected Sardinia, an “island within the island” far from tourism and suspended between tradition and modernity.

We sought to create a subtle, non-descriptive dialogue between images and words, allowing them to complement each other. The texts, composed of interview fragments and isolated sentences, were treated as visual material, minimizing our intervention.

Names of places and people are often always omitted, to create the impression of a choral “village-Sardinia” in which each voice contributes to tell a universal story.