“A few months ago I found an old photograph album in my house in Sicily, which shows my mother’s entire family: brother, parents, uncles, cousins and gradually even her closest friends. A thin tissue paper tries to protect the photos from the passage of time but I notice that there is a gash right at the height of my mother’s face, as if her face wanted to pierce the darkness and look at me, talk to me, tell me that she is still here, among us.
The gash cuts through the darkness but also forgetfulness, the oblivion for which photography is a powerful antidote. I thus imagined giving new life to memories of past lives, decorating them with colours and sometimes ribbons or flowers, to eliminate the temporal connection that has divided us and to confirm that memory has a weight, a soul that transcends all distance, to revive a forced absence and bring it back to us, as an unforgettable presence.”
(Giuseppe Francavilla)
Giuseppe Francavilla: Born in Palermo in 1974, I have been having a natural flair for the shot since I was 10, using a Polaroid 1000 model borrowed from my brother. A few years later the first experiments in street photography gave way to the glossy world of glamour. The real revolution begins owning a Kodak’s bridge camera with a 24x zoom which trained my eye to look for the hidden details of things, as in an imaginary game in which there is always something hidden from reality that may tickle the wonder of surprise.
In 2008 I returned to the glamour theme placing as finalist at the 6th edition of Paris’ PX3. A few years later I inaugurated my portfolio on Vogue Italia’s PhotoVogue website with more than 500 photos. Since then, international honors have dropped with some regularity and this has pushed me to challenge my skills more and more. Currently I dedicate myself mainly to street and documentary photography. I recently finished my triptych on my mother’s family.
website: www.giuseppefrancavilla.it
