Projects #1 - Signs of passage by Sandro Iovine

i© Mario Badagliacca.

Fragments by Mario Badagliacca

For many, too many men and women the only hope to escape from certain death is to face the desert and the sea, an often-fatal journey searching for a new life. These are neglected stories that do not leave any trace in the collective consciousness. The only things that remain to remember the migrants are the objects they leave behind

Lampedusa appears on the horizon usually after a very long journey that cuts through sub-Saharan Africa, the Sahara desert and the sea.
On average migrants see Lampedusa after two years and an indefinite number of corpses.
Lampedusa is the European outpost, a small island in the Mediterranean where every year the protagonists of current intercontinental migrations that can make it alive are inserted in the identification and public health circuits. Here they are materially and symbolically dispossessed of their personal belongings and identities.
Lampedusa is that place where the individual and collective stories become no more than matriculation numbers.

A group of associations – among them Archivio delle Memorie Migranti, Askavusa and Progetto Isole – have begun to recover these personal belongings in the island dump. Subsequently The Biblioteca Regionale of Palermo has paid for their restoration thanks also to the interest of a famous newspaper that published a long article on these fragments of memory kept in Porto M.
In the image lies the task of detracting from the darkness of indifference objects that represented support, identity and hope for those desperate men and women. In the image lies the task of bringing them back to life and of mounting in the purity of an aseptic background. In the image lies the task of narrating to the world individual stories of fear, expectation and desire of a new life in Europe.

[ Sandro Iovine ]

i© Mario Badagliacca.

i© Mario Badagliacca. ≡
THE LAST OUTFIT OF THE MISSING
by Fred Ramos

Difference in the narrative objectives but similar to the shape of Mario Badagliacca’s work, stands the work of the Salvadorian photographer Fred Ramos, who won the 1 ^st prize Stories in the Daily Life category of the World Press Photo 2014 with the work The last outfit of the missing. In these images Ramos tells the cruel reality of El Salvador, the country with the highest murder rate in the world. Lots of the murders are strictly linked to the gangs’ war over the control of the territory where the level of violence is so difficult to imagine that the identification of the corpses can be done only through their clothes. In this sense, the pictures of the clothes worn by the victims are the frightful portraits of the situation of the country.

i© Mario Badagliacca.

Mario Badagliacca - Born in Palermo in 1980, Mario Badagliacca graduated in International Relations and Diplomacy in L’Orientale University in Naples. During his studies, he collaborated with various no profit associations. After moving to Rome, where he currently lives, he studied documentary photography and photojournalism. His work concentrates on social and local themes and has developed in long-term projects mainly concerning the migrant communities in Italy and the effects produced by the migrating context. He collaborates with various PhD students and universities – among them L’Orientale University in Naples, University of Oxford and St. Andrews University – and national and international newspapers and magazines publish his pictures.

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Hope Graffiti by Daniel Patelli

On the walls of the first help centres for immigrants in Lampedusa there are writings in Arabic that are witness of their passage and of the difficulties faced by who is obliged to abandon his own land as his only way to keep hoping for the future

Writing is the most extraordinary author of memory and the history of man. It allows us to fix memories and pass them on to ourselves and other people. It even allows us to overcome the time limits and talk to future generations. It enables us to share feelings, to give vent to our rage and frustrations, and to celebrate our moments of happiness. Writing can be done on infinite surfaces, from the most common of paper to plaster walls.
On walls in particular, atavistic walls of a cave, the history of human storytelling began and was shared through images, even before writing as intended today was invented. Nowadays, we still rely on writing to keep our thoughts. As with the caves in past times, during difficult moments it is on the walls of the shelter one’s own reflections are entrusted.

This is what the immigrants disembarked in Lampedusa did. The traces of their passage are inaccessible texts to the majority of the people that grew up in western culture. Similar to ornaments more than sentences, they can awake curiosity when they evolve in some sort of syncretic shapes. In their proximity we are facing fragments of history written by the very protagonists of these changes that most probably will be remembered in history books. We register them to preserve them, removing them from their place of origin and oblivion; taking care of the translation is a small enormous accomplishment that brings to understanding. A process that could even allow us to start thinking about the graffiti authors as proper human beings…

[ Sandro Iovine ]

iThe route to follow.
© Daniel Patelli.

iProbably a reference to an area in Tunis.
© Daniel Patelli.

i«There is no other God than Allah and Muhammad is his prophet».
© Daniel Patelli.

i«Allah is always with us».
© Daniel Patelli. ≡ BEHIND THE SHUTTER CLICK
with Daniel Patelli

Daniel Patelli tells FPmag how the work I graffiti della speranza (Hope Graffiti) was born and has developed, and offers us an interesting opening on his way of working on the field.

i«…what a faggot!»
Probably an insult addressed to the smuggler who led the illegal immigrants to the island of Lampedusa.
© Daniel Patelli.

Daniel Patelli - After graduating in biological sciences, Daniel attended a Master course in digital photo retouch, reportage, language of visual communication and photographic technique at the John Kaverdash Photography Academy in Milan. He attended a specialisation course in Unconventional & Viral Marketing at the Ninja Academy in Milan. He also took part in the workshop (fare) Fotografia nel cinema (Do photography in cinema) with the director of photography Luca Bigazzi. From 2009 to 2012 he worked for a private company as marketing, photography, graphic and web design manager, and he published various advertising campaigns on newspapers and inserts such as La Repubblica, Tutto Milano, Vivi Milano (Corriere della Sera), La Stampa. In April 2011, he followed the illegal immigration events in Lampedusa creating two reportages. In November 2011, together with the photo reporters Giordano Marconcini, Davide Aiello and Davide Canterino, he founded the collective K4 – fotogiornalisti indipendenti (K4 - independent photojournalists), that proposes news reportages to sensitise people on social matters. With the K4 collective, he publishes various reportages on national news matters, like the earthquake in Emilia, the protest of the workers of the night trains, political events and demonstrations. Daniel continues to dedicate himself to artistic photography and personal research and organises courses and workshops on photography, lighting and visual communication. He is currently the director of the photographic studio Spazio36 that hires rooms, locations, set and light fittings, equipment and settings.

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