«Claudia’s life resembles the fate of this pine forest. On her body have been poured flows of violence and marginalization that have transfigured her life. Its beauty fights against a continuous “brutalization” contaminated by poverty and crime. The love for her daughters is a clear attempt at redemption, a way to bury abuses and revive the rich pine forest.

I met Claudia in 2010 while photographing this huge illegal neighborhood by the sea. I was immediately struck by her vitality, courage and strength. It was love at first sight. When she told me her story I realized that through her I had the opportunity to show how a territory can determine a person’s life.

Claudia was “sold” by her mother at the age of 16 months. Found by her grandmother in a family in Modena, at the age of 14 she ends up in a community for minors at risk. Few years later life leads her to meet the father of her two daughters, an “handyman” of the Camorra who left her soon after having their children for prison. I was there when her last companion, father of her third child, took the baby away from her at the tender age of three months.

During these eight years Claudia and I have tightened a special friendship. This intimacy allowed me to enter her life as never has happened to me before in my work. But this also confronted me with dilemmas. Especially when I saw her building a violent relationship with the man with whom she had her third child. In front of their violent arguments I wondered what was the right thing to do: document or intervene?

This book is a double journey, the one in the life of this woman, a warrior, daughter of a beautiful but hostile territory and the one in my experience as a documentary photographer who explores the boundaries and conflicts of documenting.»

Francesca Leonardi

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