RAINBOW FAMILIES
The Rainbow Families Project
Long-term photographic projects on LGBT families in Italy. The project, while referring to the Italian context and directly inspired by it, testifies the situation of LGBT rights in other countries through the journeys of the Italian couples who got married abroad or have carried out the Assisted Reproductive Technology in Europe, Canada and U.S.
In 2009, Sonia and Ilaria went to Denmark for a first attempt at artificial fertilization.
TOPIC
Started in 2008, recounts the everyday stories of twelve Italian gay and lesbian families and their children born through Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART).
It describes stories that traverse national borders and shift the boundary of what is socially approved in Italy.
The work is an investigation into homoparental “new families” and their psychological milieu : it describes the strength of family bonds and how they can overcome the invisible yet oppressive barriers of discrimination and prejudice.
“Rainbow Families” is an ongoing venture, aiming to document the life of the families, and the growth and emotional development of their children over time.
Paolo and Moren got married in Montreal in 2008. They have twins born in Canada through a Surrogacy agreement.
STORIES
Paolo and Moreno have been living together for 18 years. They married in Montreal in 2008 and have two children, born thanks to a surrogacy agreement in Canada.
Chiara and Roberta married in Barcelona in 2010, after living together for 12 years. They have twin girls, Emma and Giada, conceived in a clinic in the Catalan capital.
Chiara and Roberta were married at Barcelona City Hall in 2010. Their marriage was not recognized in Italy.
STATEMENT
With this work on families with LGBT parents, I wished to explore an aspect of a vast new sphere of social possibilities.
I wanted to understand how the traditional family paradigm, the Italian “sacred family” (from which I come myself ), was evolving under the stimulus of these possibilities.
I was guided not only by an emotional, intimate and personal dimension, but also by the wish to explore man’s ability to choose and determine his own destiny; the need to analyse “the outside”, the world, society; the process through which inner motivations find their space in the outer sphere.
And, because the “world” sets absolute limits, the question becomes “where do we stand in relation to these limits?”
Families with LGBT parents have to tackle many barriers, in terms of social approval, rights and equal opportunities.
Those that I met have personally enacted a political choice with their body, shifting the ontological, existential, political and social boundaries of what is permitted in our country today.
THE BOOK
In 2013, the book on Italian families with same-sex parents has been published by Postcart, with the title In Bloom.
