Category: social

Around the Mediterranean, Massao Mascaro traces the journey of Ulysses and meets the exiles who inhabit Ceuta, Naples, Athens, Palermo, Istanbul, Tunis, and Lampedusa.

“Sub Sole (in Latin, beneath the sun), an ensemble of photographs made between 2017 and 2020, in the region of the Mediterranean Sea, follows the mythological itinerary of the voyage of Ulysses: Ceuta, Naples, Athens, Palermo, Istanbul, Tunis and Lampedusa. Crossroads of cultures, cradle of foundation myths, the Mediterranean is, today more than ever, marked by migrations, exile and displacement. Over the course of seven voyages and numerous chance encounters, Mascaro goes in search of the young people who inhabit and traverse this region. The literary narratives which the artist drew upon for his work are like the invisible companions of these photographs. They imbue the contemporary images with an ancient substance. Beneath the sun, political, economic, existential, and poetic implications intersect, beneath the harsh, hot Mediterranean light whose rhythm shapes human life.” Sonia Voss

On colourful backgrounds of his own creation, Vuyo Mabheka reclaims his history. With the few photos he has of himself as a child, imagination merges with reality.

The Afrikaans word “pophuis” refers to a dollhouse game familiar to children. Vuyo Mabheka builds the Popihuise series based on this game, using cutouts from rare childhood photos of himself. He creates interiors and scenes where he appears, sometimes accompanied by imaginary friends — represented by people from his community whom he has secretly photographed, and sometimes in the presence of a fantasised and faceless father figure.

The series features a few core elements: drawings, collages, and photographs, coexist in a seemingly naïve and tender universe. Shiny cars, skyscrapers, burning tires, and new pavilions contrast with cultivated fields, colourful birds, graffiti, and blossoming trees.

Among these images, which highlight the tension between liberalism and modernity, stands a child almost helpless in the face of his harsh reality: Vuyo Mabheka, who is rewriting his memories and reclaiming his own world.

Popihuise is Vuyo Mabheka’s first book.

Biography

Vuyo Mabheka ( born in 1999 in the rural town of Libode in the Eastern Cape, South Africa) lives in Thokoza, Johannesburg.
In 2017, he discovered photography through the Of Soul and Joy project – a creative platform that aims to provide the township’s youth and its surroundings with professional skills in the field of photography.
Vuyo Mabheka is the recipient of the 2023/2024 Images Vevey Special Jury Prize, and Popihuise series is exhibited at the Biennale Images Vevey 2024.
Mabheka is represented by Afronova Gallery, Johannesburg.

Like a door into their intimacy and captivating simplicity, Silence is a Gift gently celebrates the inhabitants of Southern Italy, a region still scarred by modern tragedies.

Rione Sanità (Naples), Santa Lucia (Cosenza), Torre del Greco. There are places in Southern Italy that carry scars of incurable wounds on the walls and on the flesh of its inhabitants. In those wounds lay the historical memory and the real face of people. Their names are Alfonso, Elena, Marco, Stefania, to name a few. Some are from the same districts and know each other, others don’t. But they have one thing in common: they’ve all met Ciro Battiloro, who has followed them into the intimacy of their home, with his camera and with his heart. He portrayed their everyday life by taking part in it. Never an intruder, Ciro Battiloro is a friend, a brother, and a confident. He doesn’t focus so much on the marginality, but rather on the extraordinary vitality. He has seen new lives being born, children becoming teenagers, and then parents in their turn. He also had to say goodbye. Silence is a Gift is about love and loneliness, life and death, pain and joy — but most importantly, about intimacy and resistance.

Biography

Ciro Battiloro (born in 1984 in Torre del Greco) is an Italian photographer based in Napoli. He studied philosophy at The University of Naples Federico II and later on specialized in documentary photography.
Ciro uses a very intimate approach: it is through everyday life that he tackles broader social thematics.
His work has been published in several magazines and exhibited in various museums, galleries and festivals.