THE GAZES OF THE LAST ONES BY ARIANNA DI ROMANO
intense portraits of a forgotten humanity by a distracted society
photography by Arianna Di Romano
words by Massimo Pacifico
It is rare to see smiles on the faces of subjects portrayed by Arianna Di Romano. Abundant, however, is resignation, wrinkles, chaps, the surprise of being considered. Arianna has chosen to portray these, the forgotten ones. Those who do not even count for the chronicle of misery. She found them in Asia, especially in Myanmar, and locally, in the Rom camps. Their eyes, which have spontaneously dealt with the monocle of the photographer, who of the word compassion knows the primigenio meaning, also arouse those of the visitors of the reviews that Arianna often and successfully prepares. Even you, BARNUM reader, will not be able to encounter those gazes indifferently!
The close up, chosen by Arianna as a descriptive style, does not allow one to compare her images with those of the Farm Security Administration photographers (who documented the great American depression of the 1930s), except for some of the most famous of Dorothea Lange (female sensitivity?), but the intent is the same: to illustrate. And Arianna’s black and white photographs are cruder than those of the photographs of the FSA. Greys, in fact, are missing, while details dazzle, thanks to the files produced with digital cameras. A choice of the author to denounce social conflicts that do not find a mediation? It would seem so!