Teenage Life in Sicily, in the Off Season

While Giulia Frigieri is an Italian photographer who lives between Marseille and Paris, her project “Eruption” focuses on groups of teenagers in the islands off the north coast of Sicily. We interviewed Frigieri about her work, and her experience of repeatedly visiting the islands and getting to know some of the youngsters who grew up there.

The remoteness of home

“I started documenting teenagers when I won a grant from National Geographic during COVID-19, in 2021. I worked with another journalist; we had been wanting to go to the Aeolian Islands for a while. We talked to at least one teenager from each island about how it feels to be further isolated from people when you’re already in such a remote place.

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”We focused mainly on a group of kids around Vulcano, Salinas and Stromboli. We asked them about their relationship with home – and about movement, the idea of home and the volcanoes. It turned into a photojournalistic story on how teens actually live. Since then, I’ve been back 17 times.”

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A connection to Sicily

“I grew up in Modena, a city that I didn’t really like or have a connection to. I felt a bit suffocated in my teenage years, really. My experience isn’t related to Sicily in any geographical way, but maybe in a psychological, mental way, or…I don’t know. For me, it felt like a little island.

“I always try to go off-season, because that’s the time when the kids have more time. It’s a great time to visit – there’s mainly locals and the stores and bars are usually still open. In summer, everyone works, and everyone’s lives are devoted to tourism, even at a super-early age. It’s the time where there is work available on the island, so all the kids start saving up money.”

The eruptions of adolescence

“I think a lot about the volcano underneath everyone’s feet – the fragility of that age and the fragility of the island soil. It’s super unstable and unpredictable – just like adolescence. The volcanic eruption and the eruption of adolescence: as an audience, you don’t see it happening. No one can really capture how it’s going to make you feel until it happens.

“It’s a moment of life that it's really intense and passionate; you don’t know what’s going to be – a moment of sadness, a moment after is...I don't know, joy and happiness. It’s the same as volcanic activity. Maybe it’s super quiet, then you hear a blast. A big eruption, or a big earthquake.

”There’s a closeness among the kids that comes across in the photos as well: the people that you went to nursery with are the people you're going to primary school with. Up until around 14, when they actually decide if they want to go to high school in one of the islands or back in Sicily, or somewhere completely different – because maybe they have family somewhere in Italy, and so they emigrate completely. But with the kids you grew up with, you share something that people that live somewhere else don’t really understand.”

All images by Giulia Frigieri