per·turb — 1. To disturb or disquiet greatly in mind. 2. To throw into great disorder; derange. Roland Barthes wrote that that which can be defined never really pricks you; instead it is the impossibility of defining that becomes a good symptom of turmoil. In her photographs, Valeria Laureano plays with the intrinsic dualism between the delimitation of a phenomenon and the fascination with the impossibility of ever fully understanding, an assumption pertinent to the human mind - dissected in every possible study, yet still so elusive -, as well as to the female figure, bound to embody many different roles - from the angel in the house to the seductive devil - and therefore difficult to limit to a single definition. In these photographs, where the original suggestion of the story of the serial killer known as The Soap-Maker of Correggio is recognisable in the dark atmospheres and the recurrence of body fragments, one feels the murky air, accentuated by decadent interiors and mysterious figures. Disturbing and restless, the women who appear in these images are potentially creators and victims of spells; each subject oscillates between an active and passive dimension: enchanting and enchanted, seductive and seduced, a fluctuation that also affects objects, interiors, landscapes. The plot is lost among possible micro-stories that have as their common thread an invitation to be charmed, seduced, bewitched, in a continuous contraction between the attractive and the repulsive.