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: “When we shot this series, we focused on some nice portraits with flowers, summer clothes, and cozy atmospheres. Then, I started to think how it would feel to loose it all. What would be left of my life, if I would not be able to see beauty anymore. This is how a friend described his depression to me: all the good things just disappeared: and he was left there, in an empty space, staring back at an empty world.”

Find more at Riccardo’s website.

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