Superheroes Among Us

Photo taken by contributor Riccardo Bevilacqua, a 39-year-old nuclear physicist currently living between Sweden and Belgium. Riccardo loves to travel, and take photos of local people wherever he goes. He worked for many years in his local community with people affected by physical and mental impairments, and he understands and is sensitive to the challenges that the families have to face, often alone. The apartment where he is living now is actually part of an old psychiatric hospital. The municipality decided to refurbish a wing of the building as a residential area, whereas the rest of the former hospital is now adapted as a museum. Geel, the town in which he lives in Belgium, is known for the practice of deinstitutionalization in psychiatric care, and this dates back since the 13th century! Still now-a-days 500 families in Geel alone, host a psychiatric patient in their house, where they live as members of the family itself.

About this photo: “I want to have superpowers. I want to look through walls and read minds of people. I dream to fly at the speed of light. And to be able to fight my monsters. How often people around us seem able to do things that are impossible to achieve for ourselves? Where did they get their superpowers? I had a friend who sustained a brain injury at birth: what I considered normal activities, for her were acts of heroism. Another friend suffered by depression: he needed superpowers to get out there and live his life. Superheroes are among us, to see them you just need to pay some attention.

I took this photo at the train station of Leuven, a city in Belgium.”