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: “These two photos are part of a series focused on dreams and imagination. I do often dream with open eyes, and I like to think that this allows me to understand better the reality beyond the world around us. A friend who suffered from depression told me that she was constantly feeling away from the reality around her: she was able to act and do things in the short moments when she was coming back “here.” I tried to portray these feelings in my images.”
Find more at Riccardo’s website.
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