Situated halfway between visual research and anthropological reflection, Aurora Bertulli’s project uses photographic language as a tool for dialogue between the individual and the collective, between the imagination of others and the author’s own gaze.
Geographies of the Prototype and of a Self Found Elsewhere
Aurora Bertulli - IED Roma - BA in Photography
Academic year
2024/2025
Taking as a starting point prototype theory – which suggests that a concept is not defined by rigid boundaries but by its resemblance to a central model – the Photography student developed a participatory investigation into the concept of “family”.
People from different cultural backgrounds were asked to freely associate words with objects that, for them, could represent the idea of family. The collected words were then translated visually through objects taken from the author’s personal experience, photographed and placed within sets where the use – or absence – of a backdrop cloth indicates their degree of belonging to her own story. This visual device weaves together emotional distance and the construction of meaning.
Family prototypes emerge as flexible forms, able to converge or diverge, yet always capable of revealing how the idea of family is built, passed on, and continually reinvented.
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