By Fabio Bucciarelli
The light shines through a small hole, momentarily constricted in the claustrophobic space before total darkness descends again. At that moment, the image of reality melts, cracks and twists, while time and space become irrelevant. What remains, on the photographic film and in our memories, is the event we just witnessed. An image that we will carry with us forever, often as the only one. Nothing else is there, nothing else has ever been or will be.
Just like in dreams. Fabio Bucciarelli knows it and engages in a dance with the light. His companions are photography and “pinolina” (a pinhole camera), both children of the region of Abruzzo. “Pinolina”, the cardboard box, the unique and enchanting camera obscura, and Fabio, an electrical engineer who had been flung into the mud and splendour of photojournalism by the 2009 Abruzzo earthquake.
This dance of ours takes us on a journey like no other in the world of journalism, the world fraught with rules.
The images, like pearls, drop from the darkness of “pinolina”. They are masterpieces defying the laws of the profession. They don’t answer questions. They flash, like our memories, fuzzy and convulsed, demanding attention and active participation.
We are left behind to grapple with these images, recognize the signs and read from the shadows. And to recognize, in the shadows of those crushed by the war and despair, ourselves and our kin.
Damir Šagolj, exhibition curator
