Francesca Cossu was born in Cagliari on August 14, 1979, but it is among the hills of Belgium, in the early years of her childhood, that the first version of her soul takes shape. There, surrounded by artists who seem to breathe through the walls, the young Francesca absorbs the quiet of the muses: her grandfather Staff, a Belgian sculptor and painter, becomes the keeper of a workshop where plaster and pitch tell stories of churches scattered in silence around the world. In that workshop, between heavy odors and flickering lights, the future photographer learns to read matter: stone becomes body, surface becomes page, and the hand becomes a travel companion.
Francesca’s life is a whirling circle of passions that refuse to settle into a single lane. At six, cooking calls to her first, like a secret recipe tucked into the folds of curiosity; at ten, dance arrives, a body language that translates unanswered questions into movement. But it is in 2012, the year of her daughter Ginevra’s birth, that photography enters her life with almost inevitable ease: a camera becomes the tool to imprison time, to freeze minutes in which life—at its purest essence—reflects in the curious eyes of a child.
Self-taught, Francesca is a tireless traveler. Curiosity leads her to roots: an interest in archaeology and Sardinia’s history guides her toward collaborations with associations dedicated to valorizing archaeological sites. With her camera, she documents ancient traces, transporting memory of places to the present, as if each image were a key capable of opening a door to remote times. Meanwhile, running, another great passion, morphs in form: from competitive athlete to photographer of runners, a profession that reveals to her that the true heart of her images lies in people.
In 2023, her awareness of her own gaze deepens. Francesca attends various photography schools, not only to refine technique and language, but also for an inner journey: looking at herself with new eyes, finding the courage to self-portray, and discovering, above all, that the people she photographs are reflections of the path she has undertaken. Each shot thus becomes a page of herself: not only a portrait, but a silent confession of who she was, who she is now, and who she may become.
Francesca’s images tell not only a biography but an emotional map: her distant childhood, the Belgian moonlit nights, the dust of churches on the move, cooking, dance, motherhood. They are photographs that suggest, with a delicacy not sought, how life can be a single scene, where time, art, and the search for self brush against each other without ever narrowing to a single path.
If one searches for a unifying thread, it might be this: the persistence of a curiosity that knows no surrender. Francesca Cossu does not simply observe the world; she looks inside it, restores it with her gaze, and keeps it in her hands like a keepsake. In her work, reality and memory align: Sardinia becomes the frame of a universal tale, where matter (plaster, pitch, stone) and light (the light no one would see without a camera) meet to tell us who we are, where we have been, and where we might go.
This portrait tells of a photographer who has learned not to fear multiplicity: mother, athlete, archaeologist, photographer, student. Francesca Cossu embodies trust in inner travel and in the civic function of art: to give voice to the past, to celebrate the present, and to grant the future the possibility of recognizing itself in the images her eyes will continue to generate.
Photo credits: The photographs come from the artist’s archive.
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