Netflix, a spare battery and an air freshener - continuation of the project You Always Cry Twice When You Go to the South
Client: Dnevnik
Text: Nik Erik Neubauer
A gentleman, let's call him Aldo, was sitting in the corner of a dark hotel café in the middle of Palermo, drinking coffee. He was dressed in a simple white shirt and slightly oversized black trousers. He was extremely friendly and open, and knew all the waiters and hotel staff by name. In the morning, various people started coming to see him: the chief of the police station, his neighbour Giuseppe, the owner of the patisserie, the doorman from the municipality and the pharmacist from the end of the street. Each one brought with him a piece of paper, which he carefully read, tore up and put in an empty coffee cup. The waiter dutifully took away the cups of paper and brought him new coffee. Mr Aldo left for lunch around midday. When he returned, he was drinking a non-alcoholic aperitivo ...
I return again and again to the South, this time to Palermo in Sicily, and I try to show my experience of these places through a photograph or the written word. When I return, I am overwhelmed by the warm feelings of acceptance, openness and rawness that I feel in these places and with these people. I found myself in the South of Italy at a slightly lost time in my life (and then I got lost a few more times). We all search for ourselves at least at some point in our lives, we just need some luck and courage to find ourselves again. Even if it's somewhere between Netflix, a spare battery and an air freshener.
The project You Always Cry Twice When You Go the South is a continuation of a series that started in 2019, when I was living in the South of Italy. At that time, I wrote that I was dedicating the work to the city of Bari and its people, and to the inhabitants of other parts of Southern Italy, where I was welcomed among them. Just as I was welcomed in Palermo, the capital of Sicily, in May. In my photographs I emphasise the mixture of feelings, and sometimes chaos, that always emerges in the South, where religion, sport, temperament, food and other aspects of life are very much connected to each other.
The project was presented at The OHO Group Award 2023 nominees’ art exhibition in P74 Gallery.