Through these portraits, I have addressed a condition common to many elderly people, namely being admitted to nursing homes where they will spend the last years of their lives. I had the opportunity to observe certain changes that occur in the elderly people living in these environments, in particular, I noticed a condition of twofold abandonment. The first is a kind of emotional abandonment, they feel that they have been forgotten by everyone, feeling useless and left alone to serve the last few years before they die. The other sense of abandonment is progressive alienation: every day is the same as the one before, today is like yesterday and tomorrow will be like today. For these reasons everything seems increasingly indefinite, far away and confusing, to the elderly people. I tried to recreate in the portraits a slow disappearance of the person and their identity, almost like a shadow that disappears without a trace, memory or sound.

All images ©Lorenzo Papi