This long-term project, whose title was inspired by the quote from the American actor George Burns - “I can remember when the air was clean and sex was dirty“ -, is a collection of photographs taken at various locations from the outset of the new millennium up to this day. All the photographs were shot with analogue cameras, using colour films that had expired 10 to 20 or more years before they were actually used.

By deliberately using old film, in a game with Time, technology and the imposed speed of life, I try to evoke a sense of nostalgia for that lightheartedness which we seem to have lost, and a certain purity which, despite all the imperfections – occasional signs of transience and decay, as well as unexpected ’mistakes’ in the photography - speak of an escape from the falsely embellished realities which are constantly being served up to us today. The resulting vivid colours, and the sharp contrast between the bright sunlight suggestive of eternity and the shadows that hover as if condensing the melancholy of everyday life, ’reflect’ in these images various peculiar, sincere, everyday, amusing or poignant moments of direct or indirect human presence in the world. 

As someone who is generationally halfway between the 1960s days of hope and sexual liberation, with all their youthful rebelliousness and innocent idealism, and the accelerated globalisation and automation of the contemporary world, which are seriously altering the nature of human interactions and fostering the instant gratification mentality, I still enjoy discovering a magic in the ordinary moments of real life, despite the fact that some of them might reveal their deeper meanings much later. And this is the past that I miss – when it seemed that we had time for everything, when the air was cleaner, and human relationships were more filled with longing.

For me, these images are ‘frozen moments’ of a carefree past, of a human 'comfort zone', encircled by the unstable present we live in and a future pervaded by fear of the end of our civilisation.