Second Skin is about the discovery of the several layers of my vulnerability, tested by those closest to me. It examines boundaries of comfort, both of myself and of the subjects photographed with me. Through this project, I used photography as a medium of therapy, in aims to bring closure to several issues that have been present in my life throughout the last two years. In the search for my identity, I have had to cultivate a sort of personal nucleus, or secondary family, that would contribute to my personal growth. From my interactions with them I have understood that it is how we make each other step out of our own comfort zones what makes us grow simultaneously.
Throughout the last two years I have reached a good level of comfort with myself, however, it is with this project how I've really tested my own boundaries. The act of exposing my vulnerability through these portraits has proven to be very hard on me, yet I felt like it was a sort of challenge to understand myself and my limits. To a certain point, the images started creating themselves as my original plan for each shoot was never the most successful. The most compelling images happened as the subjects became comfortable with the setting. In the project, I dive into finding how the people that surround me, my environment, what I wear and what I don't wear, affect my limits as a subject and a photographer. All of this is also affected by my situation as a student in a foreign country, being separated from home and the usual people that surround me. In a way, Second Skin is about understanding my methods to protect myself, unveil myself and examine the consequences with those closest to me during the last months I have spent in Rome.