According to old pagan beliefs Il Malocchio or ‘the evil eye’ is a curse causing bad luck and misfortune. In his debut book Il Malocchio Italian photographer Andrea Simonato depicts the quiet villages of his home region of Vicenza in the Northern Italy as upon this curse of unluckiness causing decay and abandonment. On his walks through sleeping villages and their empty buildings, dark woods and resting groves Simonato makes extraordinary findings in the seemingly common surroundings. The work echoes both longing and hope, creating a beautiful and poetic, yet mysterious ode to a place called home.

“When photographing I try to keep an open mind to whatever I come across. What I look for in a subject is to catch its enigmatic character, what it seems to be hiding rather than what it lets you see. Photographing in black and white helps me to abstract reality more easily by creating a sort of parallel world that is precisely that of the photographic narrative itself. Il Malocchio creates a conceptual frame for my work, as it is inherent for me to explore the mysterious side of things.”

-Andrea Simonato