Flowers Drink The River by Pia-Paulina Guilmoth is an intimate and visually enchanted narrative of her first two years of gender transition, set amidst the natural surroundings of rural Maine.

Organized in collaboration with Cortona On The Move, the exhibition will also be on view in Cortona from July 17 to November 2, fostering a complementary dialogue between photography and video.

The event also marks the launch of (Pre)Visioni, Rifugio Digitale’s photography podcast curated by Irene Alison and directed by Paolo Cagnacci. The first episode, dedicated to the artist’s dark and poetic imagery, will feature Paolo Woods, artistic director of Cortona On The Move, as a guest.

Each photograph is a ritual, a promise, a secret. Each image is an open window onto a borderland of dreams and mystery, of grace and wonder. In Flowers Drink The River, on view at Rifugio Digitale starting July 17, American photographer Pia-Paulina Guilmoth tells and celebrates the first two years of her gender transition, lived within a conservative community in rural Maine. Through her connection with the natural world, she discovers a safe space in which to recognize herself in her new skin, nurture her desires, and weave her relationship with an ancestral dimension. In her images, Guilmoth traps stars in a web of spider silk and captures the moon in a pond, celebrating the beauty and magic surrounding her. Her work is built on long periods of waiting, wandering through the darkness of the forest, silent interactions with nocturnal creatures, surprising apparitions, and an ineffable quality that makes her photographs as powerful as a hymn and as delicate as a caress. Nature becomes a place of comfort, where she can observe and learn from the behaviors of animals, insects, and plants, drawing from them a lesson in perseverance.