The Buddhist conception of the world, and particularly that of Madhyamaka, is based on the principle that nothing exists in and of itself. Phenomena are merely the result of causes and conditions that temporarily produce them. The world is a theater of shadows, and the elements that make it up are destined to disappear or transform within a vast movement of impermanence.
This observation also applies to living beings, whether human or not. They, too, are subject to impermanence. What must be sought is not an ontological unity but a functional unity behind the constant transformation of the flows of matter and will from which they are made.
It is this fundamental principle that is referred to as emptiness, or śūnyatā, which Madhyamaka Buddhists apply to the entirety of the world. Things and beings lack an essence or self-existence; they are the product of causality and do not stand alone.
The project "Emptiness" seeks to illustrate this state. By abolishing the boundaries of the photographed objects, it makes less evident the belief that they are separate things existing independently of one another. Thus, the apparent solidity of the setting collapses, becoming nothing more than a shapeless mass in the process of transformation. It becomes clear that phenomena are no longer autonomous but have merged into a whole where impermanence is made visible through the blur of movement.
However, in this setting devoid of essence, the subjects resist. Certainly, the characters are also affected and drawn into the same deconstructive effect, and emptiness is visibly their status. But the subjects – in both senses of the word, as individuals and as the main focus of the photograph – maintain a semblance of unity. They remain legible and identifiable, even though some parts of their bodies are invisible, having abandoned them. It is as though they are fighting against emptiness, trying to preserve an ontological unity, the "self" or ātman that Buddhists seek to reject.
"Emptiness" thus illustrates the tenacity of being in refusing to be stripped of its ontological status. This obstinacy to "be" in a collapsed world.
