I interviewed Stefano Tripodi creator of the edition ‘Sudario’ and founder of the association TVFL (The View From Lucania). Together I exchanged a few words with Salvatore Santoro, one of the artists involved in the publication.

Stefano what’s the idea behind the publishing project ‘Sudario’? Can you explain the title?

Stefano Tripodi (ST): The project idea was born during one of the long and usual raids in Lucania from me and the director Andrea Fasciani. It was the winter of a couple of years ago, maybe more, and we had just met the photographer Filippo Romano, who had come to visit us. He had left us a bit of material produced in southern Italy. On that occasion, we created a video box that housed on a regular basis the contributions of artists who were filming in Southern Italy. It was the first Sudario (Shroud), we have already made three and they are all still visible on Vimeo channel of The View From Lucania. It was a very exciting, the first ‘Sudario’ was screened in some Italian festivals, and so I decided to transfer it to paper. The title ‘Sudario’ is a beautiful work of Andrea Fasciani. He is always very good at defining things, situations, applying a name, a label, and this thing works often. I’ve always told him that he would have to work as advertising, create slogans for advertising. Obviously it’s a joke, his work as a director is certainly what we need. The word ‘Sudario’, which contains within it the word Sud (South), is perfect to describe that filthy mixture of traditions, paganism, Christianity, crazy, hot, religious ecstasy, drunkenness and breathtaking beauty that is the south Italy. But the ‘Sudario’ is also a veil that the artist’s eyes alight on territories, things and people, whenever the artist confronts the South of Italy in an attempt to narrate. It is a cultural sheet that absorbs, filters, and returns. In this sense, the choice of printing in Risograph seemed interesting. Nothing is closer to the concept of the ‘Sudario’ that the technique of printing Risograph. The rice is unpredictable, uncontrollable, just like the south. And at the same time is the “veil” that filters everything, returning it inevitably changed. Many artists do not accept that their works are submitted to this technique. Get in the ‘Sudario’ project means accepting this filter, giving up all the nuances of color, marry the mono or bi-chromatic.

Tell us about The view from Lucania, the organization that you founded in 2010 and through which you developed the project ‘Sudario’.

ST: The View From Lucania comes from the need to find a relationship with Southern Italy, a land that I left when I was 19 years old. After more than a decade I arrived in Milan, at the time I attended the Advanced Training in Photojournalism Agency contrast, a dramatic bluff, one of many rotten horses in the world of photography and Italy. There, I met photographers every day, many were good, and this was the only interesting thing. So I finally decided to involve some and I took them in Lucania, which is the homeland of my father’s family. Despite the big names, few have given something in terms of truth, adherence, novelty. Many have come to take a vacation, or to repair marriages in the balance, to drink, eat and make small talks. It was fun. There were those who came out of the bedroom with a sheet in their hands, and with a beard made and sleepy face, and shouting an idea. I still have those notes, they are tender. I thought the Lucania was the right place in the South where to give birth to a project and say things. The relationship with nature is very high, the population density is low, there is room to think, this is important.

For four years I have proposed courses, curated by photographers, filmmakers, film editors, sound engineers. It is not always gone well, no one has ever sponsored, TVFL is an anarchist and independent project. At first I wondered for the spaces, then I decided to do everything in my house. I felt it was consistent, the domestic dimension returns an intimacy that can not be found elsewhere. The students ate with us, slept, shared rooms, was a continuous flow. 

The only time I worked with a local institution was the exhibition of Domingo Milella ‘Orli estremi di qualche età sepolta’  curated by 3/3, a wonderful experience in cooperation with the town of Castelmezzano, a village of extraordinary beauty. You know, I grew up in those places, with my family we went there when we could, especially in the summer. It was the most beautiful childhood that a person could ever want. Then one day, I had this idea, it was the Easter of 2010, I went to visit my brother, who at the time was studying at Urbino Academy, and now he is a digital designer. The project name is his idea, I think it has been inspired by ‘The view from the road’ by Kevin Lynch. The font used is the Titillium, an open source that my brother has helped to develop.

Finally, I then spent some time in Lucania, alone, in order to feel it, hear it and to see the changing of the seasons. For months I wandered around, I slept in the car or in a tent, walked riverbeds without water, in summer, to move from one country to another. I met pastors, men with rifles, hermits. I slept in abandoned villages, eating at the tables of families who hosted me. I saw several wolves in the woods of Gallipoli Cognato. I felt the need to assimilate this wonderful land. This is the way to sincere thoughts. Today TVFL focused to develop its publishing activities, not forgetting the value of teaching. We are trying to understand, in fact, how to offer a cultural exchange. The world of the workshop is now old, tired, clogged, and devoid of good ideas.

In the number #0 of ‘Sudario’ there were 7 artists interspersed  (Carlo Bitetti, Andrea Fasciani, Aldo La Capra, Antonio Macrì, Pietro Motisi, Salvatore Santoro, Stefano Tripodi). How to they communicate with each other and how they are incorporated into the project?

ST: I personally supervised the project ‘Sudario’, both the selection and invitation of the artists. After selecting them, you need to check on the paper how does the relationship between the message and aesthetics work. Two images can run close together, but may not be the same for the message, the thread that binds them together. After several attempts and after excluding some artists and much of the material that I had shot, we have achieved the right balance. Each artist has a value and a clear weight. It was interesting to take responsibility to understand how the images could talk.

The graphic design has its meaning and its value in the production of ‘Sudario’. Tell us about the “double” cover…

ST: The double cover is an excellent insight by Andrea Zambardi  and Sara Bianchi, founders of ATTO, the graphic design studio that works on ‘Sudario’. I think they had already experienced this choice, but the right idea was to superimpose the photographic portrait of the brigand Crocco with one of the drawings of Antonio Macrì. It created an interconnection which tied all together, strengthening it. The two images are incredibly close. The design of Macrì has, then, something exotic which creates a moment of disorientation and manages to capture attention. I asked to ATTO to do what they wanted, but to be minimal. They were great, when they asked me to print in Risograph they knew it was a strong choice. Reasoning by subtraction would have created a strong graphic design, and at the same time provide the right space to the iconographic research.

Could you explain to us the relationship between text and image in ‘Sudario’?

ST: This is a good question. To me the text has the same value of the photographic image. It is a narrative in the narrative, another possible way. Image and text have a bond, because the text is made of many minuted images, but at the same time they are untied. You can take the narrative spores I wrote, detach them, and read them separately. It would be nice to do 10 numbers of ‘Sudario’ with these literary spores, maybe it’s a road that I will continue to follow. I like to mix the languages, photography can be boring when is self-referential. Generally I get bored with photography, I find it hard to find nice things. So I thought to insert those little stories in the ‘Sudario’ would give a sense of openness.

A preview of the next issue…

ST: The next issue is the # 1, an important number. It should be out in the summer. I did not hurry and I do not have pressure on the timing. I’m trying to figure out whether to start the discussion of thematic numbers or not. What is certain is that we will make the selection, there will never be any call for entries. With ‘ATTO’ we will choose the color to use. The number zero is made of black and blue, you know this color thing interests me very much. Establish the color map of the fanzine. The next issue will be very experimental, I want to abandon certain types of classical narrative typical of photography. We will See!

For each author two pages. In this way the chosen image has a strong representative and iconic character. What made you choose your own?

Salvatore Santoro (SS): Actually I gave everything, almost everything in the hands of Stefano. The self-representation is not for me. I sent him my selection of photographs. A selection that was perhaps characteristic, but not representative… or maybe it’s an excuse, maybe they represent me all. Well I have to think about this. In the selection there were also some photographs that are not in the book, so as to give a little bit of choice available, and to make uniform the work of Stephen. The final choice I liked, I like the whole magazine.

Your image is perhaps the one that has more documentary" connotations. How does it relate to the rest of the iconographic corpus of ‘Sudario’?

SS: Well there are faces, people. It is a documentary, at least in its origin, but relocated in the context of ‘Sudario’ these images have  a built-in function, and of course a lot depends on what is there before and after. ‘Sudario’ is not a documentary - at least not conventional - and the use of images is functional to an interpretation which moves in various directions.

As the project ‘Sudario’ fits in your photographic research?

SS: ‘Sudario’ is a work by Stefano that fits in my library rather than in my research: I am a user of it. Ok, I have contributed to the first issue, but for now I’m working on other things. Perhaps this year I’ll be able to complete the third work, but still I do not know if it will be a book. We will See. ‘Sudario’ is a very interesting project, and the use that makes of various “vocabularies” is very interesting. So it is part of my research as an object of study.

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LINKS 
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