“Some people who come to the clinic shiver with fear throughout the whole visit, they are terrified of getting vaccinated, and it’s not fear of the needle but the vaccine itself”. These are the words of the photographer’s mother, a nurse working in the adult vaccination ward at Ramazzini hospital in Carpi. From her accounts, although trivial, comes the decision to show a glimpse of the Italian reality on the issue of vaccinations, without dividing the question into two opposing factions (Novax and Provax), but rather by trying to deepen the different nuances of truth that revolve around it. 

Since 2017, the year that the Lorenzin Decree was introduced which made ten important vaccines compulsory, there have been many protests throughout Italy. With the Coronavirus pandemic, the issue of vaccination has returned to the public forefront, fuelling old protests, and attracting the interests of pharmaceutical companies in the race to produce a vaccine. 

This photo investigation, which began in December 2019, brought the photographer into close contact with researchers, scientists, companies, sportsmen, families, children, directors, lawyers, soldiers, and many other people from various parts of Italy, of all ages and social backgrounds, because vaccines affect all of us and our health.  Even the title: (UN)VAXXED is a project that focuses on the reality looking at it from above, without taking a position nor judging anyone, but rather leaving the viewers free to form their own opinion through the images and the stories of its protagonists.

Photo copyright: © Francesco Andreoli