Francesca and Cecilia’s project began when Francesca’s role as mother and role as woman became unclear. After experiencing the transition and complete selfless fusion with the bond of motherhood, she investigates what that projection of unity conveys towards her young children reappropriating their identity. This exploration has led to new discoveries taking a curious perspective that moves from the outside to the inside, revealing the complexities of transitions and transformations. We make these changes not only as a mother with children, but also for the child's development as they evolve gaining their independence and identity, tied to family but unique to their own being.

We evolve as we grow and age. There are pieces of the past, that influence the present, that combine to change the future. Francesca describes the metamorphosis of transition and transformation of her daughter Cecilia as she experiences life through the challenges and enlightenments that come with the adolescence of a young woman. “The desire to describe the evolution of my daughter Cecilia began when she was 8 years old, today she is 11. Observing her I saw a poem that spoke not only of her, but of all the promises waiting to be fulfilled. As Cecilia grows so does the dialogue between us. I relive and retrace in a therapeutic way my own history which was characterized by a strong conflict with my mother and her refusal to give space both to my femininity and to my growth as a woman.”

Francesca has watched her daughter from early years transitioning to a young woman today and describes what she has witnessed. “There is something poetic in girls, a combination of delicacy and strength, an anticipation of what will be the woman of the future that is sometimes already legible in the pride that is expressed in the first years of age.” Cecilia has always been a thoughtful girl, engaging in the world around her. She loves to enter and animate Francesca’s photographic work, playing with shapes and colors: “Photography is an art that fascinates me a lot and I enjoy making photographs with mom. When we collaborate it is as if our souls come together and since we love each other very much, we create beauty.”

Cecilia reports that she feels “Immense satisfaction” when she sees the images she has created with her mom and about the role she plays, she believes that, “It’s not that I have one role and my mom another...we get in tune and create together.”

Francesca describes how her daughter experiences this interaction. “Cecilia plays with fabric drapes that she chooses both for their colors and for the way they drape and wrap around her body. The dimension of play and lightness is fundamental. The more she goes into adolescence, the more she tends to envelop herself in the drapes that become her cocoons. Her desire is to find and discover who she is in the images of herself. Cecilia’s body is constantly changing, as does the appearance to others, increasing Cecilia’s awareness.”

Francesca sees that in Italy there has been a cultural effort for young girls to look at female models like writers, activists, scientists for inspiration and the aspirations of what a woman should be. Cecilia asks her mother Francesca “Why in Cagliari, the city we live in, there has never been a female mayor?” This concerns Francesca and makes her wonder if it is a legitimate ambition of a child to have infinite possibilities of realization in front of them, be integrated with the foretelling of the obstacles and discrimination that they may encounter along the way.