Sicilian photographer Ferdinando
Scianna has been chosen to interpret in images the
Bio-Mediterranean cluster pavilion at the food-themed Universal
Exposition in Milan.
Photographs by the 72-year-old photographer from the
province of Palermo are to form a permanent exhibition in the
collective pavilion uniting 11 countries including Albania,
Algeria, Egypt, Greece, Lebanon, Malta and Tunisia and the
Sicily region whose task is to 'narrate' the development of the
culinary traditions that have grown up in the Mediterranean
basin.
"The exhibition in the cluster is divided into four themes
and narrates an idea of the Mediterranean," Scianna explained.
"In the photographs I tell of the food, the memoy of
rituals and tradition: I hope they might give the emotional idea
of my relationship with these places," he continued.
Born in Bagheria in 1943 and a friend of the late writers
Leonardo Sciascia and Manuel Vázquez Montalbán, Scianna was the
first and only Italian to join the prestigious international
Magnum Photos agency in 1989.
He says he feels Sicily deeply inside himself despite
having an international gaze on the world.
"My personal history has led me to live outside Sicily for
almost half a century," he said during the presentation of a
recent exhibition on Sicily in Rome.
"Or rather, I knew with an obscure kernel of shame that I
had run away from Sicily. But little by little I realised over
time that you never leave Sicily entirely, that such a
dramatically strong sense of belonging cannot be destroyed,"
Scianna concluded.
Expo 2015 opens in Milan on May 1 on the theme 'Feeding the
planet, energy for life'.
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