The Dark Spectacle
This project was made during the Centenario dell’Aeronautica Militare in Italy, a public celebration that opened military aircraft and infrastructure to civilians. Families, tourists, and children were invited to approach, touch, and photograph machines designed for war.
Rather than focusing on the aircraft themselves, the work observes how these machines are experienced: as spectacle, entertainment, and cultural heritage. Through moments of proximity - resting under wings, climbing into cockpits, posing for selfies - military power is transformed into something familiar, even affectionate.
The photographs do not depict violence, but they question what happens when its instruments are absorbed into everyday life, and when distance from their consequences allows them to be admired without fear.
Military air shows present war as a public performance. They remove danger, context, and consequence, replacing them with access, safety, and spectacle. In this environment, weapons become objects of curiosity, and participation replaces reflection.
Children play beneath aircraft; pilots sign autographs; visitors take selfies with machines capable of destruction at a scale impossible to imagine from the ground. The absence of violence does not neutralise these encounters - it makes them possible.
This project is not an accusation, but an observation of how power is aestheticised and normalised. It asks how images contribute to this process, and whether looking can ever be neutral when what is on display is built for war.