During these solitary walks, one recurring figure kept reappearing: a lone raven. It crossed my path again and again, like a shadow, a witness, a double. At the time, I often found myself daydreaming about seeing the world from another perspective. Much of my view was from above, through the window five floors up, from the balcony overlooking the trees in the park.
In Japanese postwar photographic culture, the raven holds layered symbolism: a messenger, a mystery. The Japanese term for “wanderer” (旅烏) can also be interpreted as “bird of passage,” a phrase that seemed to describe both the raven and myself, two separate beings drifting through the same landscapes, unseen and searching.
This book is about that search, a quiet journey shaped by absence, longing, and the effort to see through another’s eyes.The series itself was created during two periods in Japan, emerging from a time of emotional dislocation in which walking became a way of searching rather than simply moving. The work follows this quiet, introspective journey, marked by the recurring presence of a lone raven, a symbolic “wanderer” whose path seemed to mirror Luca’s own. The book reflects themes of longing, displacement, and the effort to see through another perspective.
