Silvano Magnone

For the ongoing project SACRO SILENZIO, Silvano Magnone spent the last two years exploring his favourite belgian and italian forests.

As a tribute to the powerful and calming energy of the woods, the images for SACRO SILENZIO are taken using the slow, ancient technique of Wetplate Collodion.

Wetplate collodion – a photography process dating back to 1850 – is an extremely complex and entirely hand made photographic technique that requires all the steps to be made on the spot, from the preparation of the chemistry to the final development of the image in a darkroom.

For this project He had to adapt the entire creation process to the new challenges of photographing in the wild, using a wooden large format camera and antique brass lenses and building a portable darkroom and a trailer to carry around all the equipment with a bicycle in order to reach the otherwise inaccessible locations in the woods.

Wet plate Collodion is an organic process and very unpredictable; above all it requires an important dose of humbleness. Manipulating his home-made chemistry in the open air, the photographer abandon a position of total control and the uncertainty of the whole process allows him to step into a world in which every accident is possible and every unwanted reaction might bring him to see things under perspectives that he would have never imagined.

For l’Enfant Sauvage Silvano Magnone created an installation called Shinrin-Yoku, a contemplative journey into one of his creations from Sacro Silenzio.
Entering a silent minimalistic space, the viewer is invited to plunge into a meditative space, to take time, explore and surrender to the majestic and powerful energy of the forest.