andrea seroni
photographer
“Any photograph is physically mute.”
Godard and Gorin.
Give me a voice is an attempt to make a photograph speak.
Although mute, a photograph is able to bring back the past in a particular way, however, it needs help.
First of all, the help of text. This text may not make an image free from all of the codes to which it is subjected, before and after the shot, but it can help the photo to tell the truth or at least one of the truths of which every reality in all its complexity is composed.
The text should give the viewer all of the information that the photograph itself, as mute, cannot give.
As the photograph gives micro information (details), the text provides macro information (contextualization).
Together, macro and micro information can explain and make sense of that piece of reality which was captured at that moment.
However even the text it is not enough, it requires further help.
We need an element that can give photography a unique medium in order to bring back the past. This element is the memory of the people linked to the photo, who have had direct experience of the fragment of reality shot.
Through their voice, the photograph can speak. The memories become vitally important information and testimonies of what the past represented in the photo.
As they speak they tell us the true story of the picture. This information helps the photo to fix a meaning which is less subject to interpretation and cultural codes, but not completely immune to it.
Give me a voice
MA Photography Show 2014
London College of Communication
Elephant & Castle
London SE1 6SB
Sat 22 Nov - Mon 1 Dec 2014
Thank you to Donato, Fabio, Maria, Renata, Ruth, Simone.
