I have a personal anecdote that binds me to the noble figure of Lisetta Carmi; an exchange of letters. To reach her current “refuge” and silence I only had her postal address. So I thought to present my curatorial project, which also included her work “Travestiti”,in the same way as in the past when the communications reached us via the postman.

© Lisetta Carmi, Travestiti, 1965-71

The answer came quickly, polite and full of heartfelt sincerity that was written in a delicate and resolute handwriting similar to her way of photographing. A style that was feminine and attentive, fearless, aware of the dark side of life, of suffering. Empathetic and so wise in being able to tell it. It did not present itself as a mere witness, but as evidence that she lived in the first person.

‘Ho fotografato per capire’ (‘I photographed to understand’), published by Peliti Associati, is not only a monograph that pays a tribute to Lisetta Carmi, but demonstrates how photography has been a means of growth for the authoress, an enrichment in black and white, with a very precise style.

© Lisetta Carmi, Il porto di Genova, 1965

The letter she sent me starts with a sentence of Confucius «Under the sky only the most absolute sincerity can make changes.» And it is this sincerity of vantage point and content, that Lisetta Carmi used as unifying thread for her photographic thought. A thought that is distilled page after page, image after image, creating a corpus which besides being quantitatively significant also sheds light on its historical and iconographic depth.

© Lisetta Carmi, Irlanda, 1975

«I have always tried to give voice to the last ones, to those affected by power, worldwide» Lisetta Carmi continues, and so her works make up a chorus of voices that she passionately reported, while approaching reality in such a way so as to photograph its most hidden corners. I have always been fascinated by the series of portraits of Ezra Pound. They are veiled by a mysterious eternity: beard, eyes and wrinkles of the poet seem registered in a time that had become eternal, that crossed the boundaries of the photographic moment, although in truth the meeting – at Pound’s doorway - was fleeting and of few words.

© Lisetta Carmi, Ezra Pound, 1966

At a time that emphasized content over photographic genre, Lisetta Carmi ranged from social projects and surveys - such as the Port of Genoa or the Genoese hospitals that make us spectators of childbirth - to those that focus more on the traditions of a land and on the “wrinkles” of its inhabitants. As in ‘Acque di Sicilia’ (Waters of Sicily), a work about water routes and their culture and the faces of those who lived there.

© Lisetta Carmi, Travestiti, 1965-71

Then many other works such as the Teatro Carlo Felice in Genoa, or Ireland during the struggle between Catholics and Protestants, or the Metro in Paris in 1965, or the flooding of Florence in 1966. And finally her “transvestites”. In the letter sent to me she said she was tired of being known only for that series, yet it is a work of rare beauty and truth. It’s the central element which unravels the whole sunburst, an elaborate set of photographs found in the wide-ranging book ‘Ho fotografato per capire’.

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