Self -portrait as my father
All pictures copyright Silvia Rosi. Originally commissioned through Jerwood/Photoworks awards 2020
I love these images by Silvia Rosi, made as a homage and connection point to both her mother and the studio portraiture of Togo. They look fantastic, but at the same time there's something very direct in them and very personal in them that takes them above the two-dimensional, that crosses time and connects to who her mother and father are, how they connect, how they function in the world, how they struggled to survive in Italy.
These are the introductions she gives to her parents on her website. They serve as captions to the images, and are something to behold in their simplicity and directness.
Father: He was an educated man from a good Togolaise family. He arrived in Italy with a few clothes, some books and the dream of finding a good job. A few weeks later he was picking up tomatoes in a field for a few cents a box.
Mother: She arrived in Rome in 1989 to reunite with her lover and found a job straight away as a babysitter for a family. One day while she was cleaning their living room, she heard on the radio that they were going to pass a law that would legalise every migrant in Italy. She was glad she listened to the radio that day.
I asked her a few questions and here are her answers.
When did you decide to make this project
connecting to your mother?
A picture from the family album portrayed
my young mother selling make up in Assigame. It’s one of those rare images
which are not taken at the photographer’s studio. This picture was to me a
window into my mother’s life immediately before migration, and from that I
build the structure for my project.
What role did photography play in your
mother's families life in Togo?
What changed or stayed the same when she moved to Italy?
When she moved to Italy disposable cameras where more accessible and she and my dad would document their lives. Back in Togo photography was a collective celebration, while during migration it became more like a record of experiences, an affirmation of the self in the uncertainty of the migratory journey.
What are you seeking to replicate in your
images?
Self-portrait as my father on the phone
Has the making of the images affected
your understanding of your mother's experiences?
Will you continue this project?
For sure, I see it as an ongoing project
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