Saved by a Deer
In documenting her daily exposure to raw nature, Chiara Zonca’s deeply affective photography explores how creativity supports wellbeing
words & photography – chiara zonca
location – british columbia, canada
Saved by a deer is a love letter to nature. I started this series while dealing with depression and a sinking feeling of being out of place. I was living in a city at the time, something I personally found suffocating and numbing. Following an intuition, I decided to change my lifestyle completely and move full time to a rural island in British Columbia – a place I had visited in the past that left a lasting impression on me. The island appeared frozen in time, covered in lush rainforest and with a small and vibrant artist community. Summers are wonderful on the island but I fell for it in Winter. When all tourists are gone and for many months you only hear the sound of the rain and your own breathing. For the first time in years I felt I was in the right place.
This work all started with a simple idea: what if nature could be an alternative “pill” I could take daily against depression?
With this in mind, I started documenting how daily exposure to raw nature was affecting me personally. What I felt walking barefoot, swimming or simply walking through the woods capturing subtle scents of moss and pine trees.
I wrote and took photos of all the places that made my heart sing; the highs and lows of my depression as well as the activities I enjoyed such as harvesting seaweed, cold water plunging and forest bathing. Constantly trying to find myself in each landscape, I captured the feral childhood I wished I had and an intimate connection with nature I now crave.
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