This work plays with the idea of the female spy as both femme fatale and covert operative — exploring our metaphorical female armor, the surface veneer we all wear: hiding and revealing as we choose, behind hair, a rose, or in shadow.

As psychology professor Michelle Ryan has observed, women are persistently framed as “the effect to be explained” — their confidence questioned, their difficulties foregrounded, their ease never assumed. These lady spies refuse that framing. They are overconfident, fierce, and strong. Not violent in the way power is so often coded masculine — think Bond — but utterly ready.

This is femininity as strategy. Secrets kept and secrets weaponized. The gaze returned.

The images and films are created using artificial intelligence — a fitting medium for work about concealment and constructed identity. AI becomes both tool and collaborator, generating faces that are at once hyper-real and entirely fictitious. These women never existed, and yet they feel utterly convincing. There is something quietly unsettling about that — a deception built into the very fabric of the work.

For La Repubblica’s Secrets Issue, the work feels especially resonant. We live in an era of deep fakes and digital doubles, where the line between what is real and what is fabricated grows thinner by the day. These women inhabit that threshold. They are secrets themselves — constructed, coded, and in full control of what they choose to reveal.

“I’ve been working with photographers for many years as an agent and editor, so I’m fully aware of the distrust surrounding AI art in the photo world. I truly understand your perspective, and I believe that by continuing to push forward, we can help change that. I’m hopeful that these interviews and showcasing beautiful works to the readers and audience of d La Repubblica will help spread the beauty and potential of AI co-creation.”

My Editor: Gloria Maria Cappelleti