Watch Me If You Can

Italian photographer Leonardo Pucci’s first artistic solo exhibition titled ‘Episodes (without a real border)’ captures stolen moments of intimacy that find its balance – sometimes precarious, sometimes profound – in the minds of its viewers

- Aditi Seshadri

One of my favourite spots in non-beachy Goa is Sunaparanta, Goa Centre for the Arts. Perched loftily atop the Altinho Hill, its grand façade and high-profile neighbours belie a serene, leafy interior and cosy exhibition space that regularly hosts varying styles and forms of art exhibits. Looking over Panjim city, offering a peek of the lives of people and places, yet far enough above for anonymity, it is, perhaps, the most fitting home for the latest exhibit on display – Leonardo Pucci’s Episodes (without a real order).

Shot in shadows, often at dusk, mostly from a hidden point-ofview, the images are arresting – both for their aesthetics and the subjects. Whether it’s a couple kissing in the recesses of a public building, where strong angular lines are broken by the softness of an intimate moment, or an almost Botticelli-esque vision of two men in a swimming pool, their faces hidden from view, Episodes… allows – or even forces – you to turn into a voyeur. You see these captured moments of intimacy that you know you were never meant to see, but you are unable to look away. ‘Years ago I was struck by a performance given by the Italian theatre company, Motus. The show was called “Twin Rooms” and underlined the role of a hotel room, which, although lived in for a brief moment, ends up becoming the fragment of an open story. Since then, the broader idea of an intimate and apparently protected place becoming a possible episode for an emotional narration fascinated me. Gradually, I developed the desire to create a vast and complete photographic project around this concept: capturing fragments of real life that provoke a strong story narration, drawing directly from the mind of the observer,’ says Pucci over an e-mail interview.