NOTES FOR A SILENT MAN

“This is a journey of initiation. It’s a story of the gradual acceptance of another part of the self, of the identical in mutation; in one word, it is about the new, in its manifold shapes. The choice was made to confront emotions through family photos, and the photos shot during a trip, a trip undertaken with the aim to rediscover the memory and the recollections connected to the paternal figure.

Camerini is like an archaeologist: the splinters of his own existence are buried in the deepest layers of his memory, and in order to reconstruct these memories the author physically travels again through the places of his childhood.
For this reason he climbs the same mountains that he used to visit during the summer holidays, he sleeps in a tent, and contemplates familiar landscapes. He collects fragments that take the shape of islands of unknown archipelagos; he flies, and while flying perches on the precarious sides of his own self.

He registers the change within himself: he’s a man, and creates a self-portrait, a mirror of himself. The narrative is light and delicate, and the rest of his family remains silent. To speak to his father, Camerini uses his camera, and the pictures become a whole new language, an attempt at explanation. This mystical experience – the ascent, the solitude – all become essential moments to his self-fulfilment. To fully understand, one has to challenge oneself; ascending, portraying and making public a private meaning. This story is everyone’s story, because growing up is everybody’s experience. Will father and son meet again? Will you meet?

The question is left open: relationships are unstable creatures in our lives.”

Project presented in Giovane Fotografia Italiana #07 | ROPES/CORDE

BIO

EMANUELE CAMERINI
(IT, 1987)

Emanuele Camerini combines his editorial work with a personal training in photography which, through an intimate narrative, places itself between documentary and conceptual photography approaches.

After having completed a three year degree in Photography at IED in Rome in 2010, in 2014 he attended the Danish School of Media and Journalism in Aarhus and, thanks to the works produced during this study period, he gained his first recognitions in the world of photography, such as the Canon ProfiFoto Prize in 2015. In 2015 he was also one of the photographers invited to take part in the master class with Aaron Schuman at the ISSP in Latvia. In 2016 he published his first book Notes for a Silent Man with the independent publishing house Witty Kiwi. As a freelancer, he has worked with various national and international media outlet, among others “The New York Times”, “Financial Times”, “Outline”, “Die Zeit”, “Stern”, “Der Freitag”, “La Repubblica”, “La Stampa”, “IO Donna”. He lives and works in Italy.

emanuelecamerini.it

Ritratto di Emanuele Camerini