Even when stories have yet to be told, they already exist. But to be brought out, into the light, they require something, an event, an action. In the case of this story, what happened was I came home to find my brother Lorenzo waiting for me: “God is looking for you” is what he said to me.

The next to speak, immediately after, were the psychiatrists of the Center for Mental Health: “Schizophrenia” was their sentence, and “Psychotropic drugs” their only offered solution. 

There is a before and after in the life of every story. The boundaries, however, are uncertain. Before hearing voices, Lorenzo loved love, friendship, cats and gazing at the stars. 

And he still loves these things. They continue to be part of his life as he faces the doctor's whitecoats, the acid green of operating rooms, the unending waiting as if something strange was happening in his head, making him a different person and there wasn't enough-invasive surgery, making it necessary to remove a tumor from his thigh-bone: "It is only psychosomatic pain" a psychiatrist had said, thinking he could thus cut short his lament. 

Lorenzo's days are filled with letters, cigarettes, a thousand more or less imaginary passions and the company of Raffaele, a true friend. Raffaele also hears voices, And, like Lorenzo, he is a schizophrenic if the psychiatrists verdict is all your looking for. 

Photographing Lorenzo was the most natural way I found I could be by his side. So that the psychiatrists don’t have the last word. And to a attempt to embrace, along with the before and after of Lorenzo's story, both people called "my brother".
Simona Pamp

Simona Pampallona, known as “Pamp”, was born in 1980 in Rome where she lives and since she was 15 years old she took her first pictures in this city. She started out with an old Reflex camera of her father, the same that she used professionally when she started collaborating with agencies and press at the end of 90’s. 

She studied Languages and Foreign Literatures and at the same time, she moved on to a brand new modern camera and she did a stage at the Associated press and published the book La memoria e l'oblio (The memory and the oblivion), winning a contest announced by Roma 3° University. 

Thanks to various scholarships she had the possibility to travel to Spain, Portugal, Great Britain and Latin America and she took back many pictures and fascinations, with the aim of devoting herself to photojournalism especially personal long term projects. 

Her works are on permanent exposition at the Mondo Bizzarro Gallery and the pictures of Corpo Celeste represented by the sole agent Benedetta Cestelli Guidi.