At the same time of Venice Biennale, you can find some exhibition proposals that stand out for their artistic quality and their conceptual and ethic values. One of these is undoubtedly the work by the great master Enrico De Santis at the 1758 Venice Art Studio Space, in Calle del Campaniel, where you can find a selection of some of his famous Exocalies, a blend of photography, research and recovery of materials, for an innovative conceptual result. We met the Master for this interview, he is a visionary interpreter of the lagoon city and the creator of the Exocalies, an ongoing project created to reflect in our soul the Beauty of the world. Exocalies have a mission, they want to show the Beauty on our Planet to enhance Nature protection or to slam social injustices before our eyes, to build a better future.

How does a photographer approach the topic of travel from a human and professional point of view?

‘I asked myself if I work to travel or if traveling is my real job. None of them is true. Every physical journey that brings our bodies to different places, has also a human and spiritual impact. Traveling allows us to leave behind our habits and securities, in order to connect with a more authentic self. When we travel we don’t wear any mask, that’s why we become able to connect with the energy of the places. I travel with this awareness that allows me to have a deep knowledge and an unconstrained imagination, that flow together in my work. Before leaving I study a lot, to be able to respect the places and the people I meet, and to help to preserve human and natural beauties at risk by global capitalism. Traveling means being free to become anew. The miracle during these journeys is to improve both ourselves and the places we encounter’.

Which countries has given you the most from an artistic point of view?

‘Is this a tricky question? Of course every country has given me memories! I’m not a “flag traveler”, I prefer a deeper knowledge of lesser places, and that’s why it’s difficult for me to make country rankings. What matters to me is that these journeys feed my artistic mind and my rational knowledge. Both these sides are intertwined in a unique great work in my mind, of which my photographs are little drops. I have worked and traveled a lot in Africa, last week I was in Namibia. In my soul are melt together boundless panoramas, the life of the savannahs, the lush nature of the tropics, the Amazon landscape, the silent Himalayas views which merge with chaotic cities like Kathmandu in Nepal, or Varanasi in India, or the art cities like Athens, New York, Paris, Rome and Naples. Beauty is sometimes overbearing and some other times provocative. Beauty seduces from afar, and sometimes it hides. But it is everywhere and it nourishes my soul’.

Your Exocalies combine different elements: photography and recycled pieces of wood which become one with the work of art… Why did you make this choice?

‘I just knew it when I found a door frame on a beach in southern Italy. I dragged it for several kilometers because I immediately understood what I wanted to do with it and which photos I wanted to insert in it. ‘Donne di Mare’ was born in this way, because I realized that using this old door as a frame had the same message of the photo, a way to preserve natural beauty. And from that idea a long-term project was born. And I started creating work of arts using old ladders, antique window or door frames, pieces of boats or large boards as a strong symbol of reuse. Reusing for me is a revolutionary act against the consumerist system that exhausts resources to keep the production high. My up-cycling art has a deeper layer than recycling because it has no waste. Not to mention Exocalies’ artistic value. Like in the ready-made art, I change the function of the objects that I use as frames. The photographs and frames are in a close relationship, generating a unique synthesis, an artistic symbiosis’.

Are the subjects of the Exocalies always linked to the theme of environmental protection? What does Exocalies mean?

‘Exocalies or even Exokalyes, mean, let the Beauty emerge. But also bring the beauty that is outside (exo-) within us, and inside our homes. The Exocalies combine Beauty with the need to communicate a message, mostly an emergency of safeguarding Nature. Works such as ‘IPostasis’ express a complaint against pollution. Or, like ‘Nexus’, the contrast created by an unfair distribution of wealth’.

Exocalies are almost ‘paintings within paintings’ in De Chirico’s way, is it a way to go beyond the real, in search for eternity?

‘Like the paintings within the paintings, the Exocalies symbolize the multiplicity of dimensions. They are a reminder of eternity and surrealism, two concepts that are also expressed aesthetically by many of my photographs. My search for photo composition, atmospheres and symbols, often generate pictures of an alternative elsewhere. Because these are photographs they also have a direct relationship with reality, they are the result of an optical sampling from reality. My experience as a photojournalist is in my DNA. And even if my photographs have a post-production phase to prepare them for printing, they are not completely artificial images, like those generated by AI, for which I suggested many times, not to use the term photography’.

In the Exocalies, you use the light, the composition and the perspective as a painter, how do you create your images?

‘Sometimes my shots are rather instinctive, some other times they are part of a project that combines thoughts, studies done in the past and what I am studing in the present moment. The intuition of how to match the frames to the photographs sometimes comes from the shape of the frames, which suggest what type of image they prefer to envelop. Some other times while shooting I already imagine what could host that photograph. All the shots undergo a pre-print cropping, so that the photo can be inserted into the chosen frame. The post-production phases vary from color temperature balance to contrast adjustment, sometimes it is just a simple conversion from Raw files and often, not even that’.

Nature, animals, man: the essence of life shines through in all your works, almost a continuous metamorphosis of emotions and passions… What does existence mean for you?

‘The true meaning of life will be discovered, perhaps, after death. For now I am happy in trying to understand it, while improving myself and what is around me’.