How to find and restore the missing images of his family history? Photographer Silvia Rosi, born in 1992, created a fictional family album, “Encounter”, to make visible the traces of her parents’ migration from Togo to Italy.
In the exhibition, the Lomé market frequented by Silvia Rosi’s mother enters into a dialogue with the technique of carrying on the head, the experience of exile in Italy and the artistic codes of the legendary “studio portraits” in Africa. from West. All this, the girl revives and merges in a resolutely contemporary creation.
RFI : “Encounter means “Meet “. What is for you the real subject of your exhibition ?
Silvia Rosi: Encounter is a project around a family album. I am inspired by images of my family. Mostly from Togo, but also from my parents here as young migrants in Italy. I stage these images using my own body and playing the role of my mother and my father when they were young, to tell their journey from Togo to Italy.
When do you cross the line between a family album and a work of art? ?
My inspiration has always been the family album. In Togo, many images of my family are taken in the studio. My family members go to the photographer’s studio, have the portrait taken, then pay a small print of around 1 euro and take it home. Looking at the scenic quality of the images in the family album, I decided to make something similar. But, I decided to make the portrait of moments which are not too happy moments. Because usually the pictures in the family album don’t really reflect the complexity of a person’s experience. I try to show another side of family life.
Beyond the family aspect, it is first of all stories of migrants.
For example, there are images that represent the moment when my mother arrived in Italy. In particular, I am thinking of the moment when she learned of the existence of a law which was going to be adopted by the Italian government and which would legalize all the migrants present on Italian soil. When my mother and father arrived in Italy, migration was not very regulated. Despite this, she found a job with an Italian family. She did the housework, took care of the children… One day, while she was ironing, she heard on the radio that they were going to pass this law. She went home and told my father. Thus, she obtained papers to stay in Italy. It was an important moment that was not present in the family album. So I decided to reenact it, using a radio and playing the role of my mother.
You were born in Italy. Today you live between London and Modena, between England and Italy. You have a BA in photography from the London College of Communication and have won the Jerwood/Photoworks and Portrait of Britain awards from the British Journal of Photography in 2020. How important is Togo in your artistic life ?
Togo is very important, because I was not born in Togo. But most of my family members live there. For me, there is also a link with Togo to better understand my identity in Europe. Togo is definitely very important in this sense.
When we look at your photos, we inevitably think of the great African photographers like Malik Sidibe, Seydou Keita, Samuel Fosso… You are part of this tradition of “studio portraits” of West Africa ?
No, I don’t think I can call myself a West African studio photographer, but I borrow a lot of the aesthetic from this photography. I think the process of creating these images made by these very famous photographers is the same that my own family went through. For example, my mother used to go to the photographer’s studio when she was a child. She often went there on Sundays to have her portrait taken. Or simply with friends to take a picture. This type of photography connects me to a moment in my family’s history that I did not experience, but which I can try to recreate through staging.
What was the most amazing reaction you received when you showed your photos in Togo?
It was compared to the photo with the tomatoes. Someone told me that they recognized in this photo the way tomatoes are presented in West African markets. In Togo, I have seen sellers present them in a sculptural way, for example in the form of a pyramid. In Italy, it was by three. This means that they have already weighed them and you can buy a certain quantity right away. People have recognized several items like this in my photos. It was very surprising to me.
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