About

Lina is a series of portraits of my grandmother, and explores notions of familiarity, appearance and migration. An Italian immigrant and survivor of severe burns as a child, my nonna underwent multiple skin grafting surgeries spanning across the first 19 years of her life.

From the perspective of those who have grown up with her, my nonna looks no different to anyone else. In turn, those who don’t know her all that well immediately recognise incredibly heavy scarring. I process this familiarity and unfamiliarity as a macrocosm of Australia’s immigration experience; only those who have migrated themselves and their descendants are accustomed to the experiences and stories of migration, not to mention the discrimination enforced by those unfamiliar with migrants and their cultures.

Bio

Through her photography, Gia Biocca explores experiences of immigration across both migrants and their descendants.