Classification – of the visible, Graziani’s photographic project documents collections and institutions from the sphere of the natural sciences that are historically entwined with colonial practices and historical ways of observation. The project depicts specific aspects of botanical collections, herbariums and naturalistic dioramas.’

When I began this project I was not exactly sure in which direction I was going. The main aspect which I wished to focus my investigation on was photography as a system of observation. I began by examining the natural science disciplines and their scholars as pioneers in the field of observation, since they used and continue to use visual tools equipped with lenses; in the past, to investigate microscopic scales, while today the scales of vision are even smaller.

This work is built around the idea of the taxonomy – the classification – of the visible, as the structural quality of photography since its origin. The idea of series, sequences and repetition, present in the debate and in the development of contemporary photography since the 1970s, is one of the fundamental aspects running through this project. I asked myself whether it would be possible to refer to a thought eluding the verisimilitude of photography.

Stefano Graziani, 1971, graduated in architecture at the IUAV in Venice, works as a photographer, teaches History and Tecnique of Photography at the Architecture Faculty, Trieste University. www.stefanograziani.com

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