Urbanautica

THE WORDS OF OTHERS. OUR INTENTIONS

by Steve Bisson

The theme of memory is intrinsic to photography, for its inherent dynamic of reproducing the visible, which freezes its traces for posterity or prolongs its existence in some way. Inclusion can, therefore, concern stories, bringing them back to the surface in some way, to attention.

© Zisis Kardianos from the series "Nowa Huta. A perfect city for the working class"

Within my students I sense a growing interest in participatory art, in shared or inclusive forms of narration. The panorama in this sense is difficult to summarize, even when it comes to visual practices. However it is now essential to compare and systematize the different existing documentary practices, methodologies, processes, but also the results, impacts and learning outcomes. If, on the one hand, we observe a growing range of visual initiatives manifesting an "inclusive" nature, on the other, it becomes essential to measure their effectiveness. To do so, perhaps we should give the floor again to the subjects, communities, and participation. What does the quality of a visual documentary depend on? By the number of likes, books, awards, visibility or celebrity, or an increase in public awareness? Or by having triggered some measurable change in the community. How do we assess the true empowerment of the subjects? In these processes, we very often do not take care of their end-of-life cycle of visual attempts. What remains in the ground? We should consider placing practices in perspective, but this is difficult when the expectation and communication remain instantaneous, linked to fireworks rather than natural wildfires that inflame consciences and shake the ground of the most depth. To sow changes, we must act beneath the surface; otherwise, the wind will blow away the best intentions. This requires time, dedication, effort, sacrifice, collaboration, empathy, and, therefore, again, inclusion. There are many approaches from this point of view, and so it may be interesting to compare different experiences to draw some considerations.Here I focus on some photographic projects selected from the last edition of the Annual Urbanautica Awards

© Zisis Kardianos from the series "Nowa Huta. A perfect city for the working class"

Zisis Kardianos' extensive documentary takes us to rediscover the town of Nowa Huta, an Orwellian settlement considered one of only two entirely pre-planned socialist realist cities ever built (the other being Magnitogorsk in Russia's Ural Mountains). The author questions this legacy, urban, as much as anthropological. What remains of all this in the collective memory? "My visual survey, still in process, aims to examine in as much a restrained but equally penetrative approach, the complex and ambiguous heritage that the city has generated through its ambitious planning and building phase, its periods of might and its unavoidable decline. Portraits of present inhabitants of different generations are intertwined with level-headed views of the city's architecture and informal documentations of every-day life." The theme of memory is intrinsic to photography, for its inherent dynamic of reproducing the visible, which freezes its traces for posterity or prolongs its existence in some way. Inclusion can, therefore, concern stories, bringing them back to the surface in some way, to attention.

© Zisis Kardianos from the series "Nowa Huta. A perfect city for the working class"

Sometimes, it can concern a social utopia; others, it is uncomfortable pages of humanity. Like those raised by Carlos Barradas in the series "Alma foi embora, Navio foi embora". São Tomé and Príncipe archipelago, due to its geographical position, has been an essential crossroads in the Portuguese global trade of enslaved people since the 16th century. From the western African coasts (especially Angola, Benin, or Congo), the colonial power uprooted inhabitants to forcefully and brutally lead them to Brazil. Still, with them, they transported their spirit. This spirit persists on these strips of land in the middle of the Atlantic wave, manifesting a conflictual past and the imperial attempt to normalize religious beliefs. "Alma foi embora, Navio foi embora", says the author, is a verse sung during the Djambi, in which music is continuously played and performed by an orchestra of men and drums, paying homage and reverence to all the ancestors who were brutally taken from their families and origins by the Portuguese. The difference and intensity of rhythms, alongside the atmosphere, might precipitate men, women, and children to become bodily vehicles for spirits wandering in the "terreiro", during which they incorporate familial and historical references to slavery and resistance." Inclusion is what we can operate in our memory, making our origins resurface like the echo of distant stories that radiate from us. But also in recognizing the diversity in everyone's history, which should never be torn away or forgotten as a language or a belief.

© Carlos Barradas from the series "Alma foi embora, Navio foi embora"

"Alma foi embora, Navio foi embora"

This brings me to Aaron Yeandle's portraits of the last indigenous Guernsey speakers and their endangered and unique language. The intention of the series "The Voice – Vouaïeis" clear: "The aim of the project is to bring awareness and create a social, historical and documentary photographic and sound archival record of the last original Guernésiais speakers. Everyone who took part in this project was also recorded talking and the Guernsey language about their life and memories. Guernsey is one of the Channel Islands in the English Channel and is extremely close to the French coast. Guernsey has an ancient language with a long and distinctive history." Why should we care then about this handful of ancient people and their endangered language? It is the essential question that Yandle asks us. The answer I allow myself is that words are dictionaries; dictionaries are descriptions of the world. If we lose words, we lose diversity, possibility, and perspective. In languages , as in dialects, there is evidence of an adaptive capacity, a contextual evolutionary spirit, and a survival force that passes through language, speaking, sound, melody, shades of color, and autochthonous noises. It's a native landscape If we want. And ways of understanding the world. Inclusion is also about such a consciousness—the words of others.

And here comes Giovanni Isetta's project, "工作 gōng zuò" which stems almost out of necessity within a logistical production facility. We are in the Northeast of Italy, a region that contributed massively to migration before finding a formula for economic redemption and transforming struggling agriculture into an almost incomparable industrial fabric. Here, workers from all over come to find jobs and a life. As in the place where Giovanni sought work after graduation. A temporary job that turned into an integral part of his life for six years. His colleagues come from all over (China, Morocco, Ghana, Brazil, Nigeria, Romania, Albania), some just passing through, and others have been in Italy for decades. In these people's lives, he encounters his family memories, of his grandparents, of hunger, of difficulties, of two world wars. Therefore, he decides to include them through an analog camera to decipher the boundaries of his land's transformation. This story, he writes, "aims to visually tell the relationship that I perceived between the people who lived in this Northeast (farmers, entrepreneurs, metal workers...) more than sixty years ago and the Chinese communities that today are an integral part of the development of this territory. I started looking for old family photos and photographing everyday reality, particularly at work, thanks to a small analog camera, and thinking about bringing these two distant realities into contact. The proposed selection features black and white photos from the archive and from the present day to trigger the viewer with a temporal and cultural short circuit that brings on the same level the construction of my great-grandparents' first shed more than sixty years ago and the working reality of the Chinese community I met." Inclusion therefore also has to do with potential intersections, meeting places, spaces for understanding, in-depth analysis and observation. Photography as a meeting point.

LINKS

Zisis Kardianos (instagra,)
Carlos Barradas (website)
Aaron Yeandle (website)
Giovanni Isetta (website)

share this page