(by Elisabetta Stefanelli).
ANSA news agency is set to
unveil the 2016 edition of PhotoANSA, its traditional year-end
book of photographic reportage.
ANSA President Giulio Anselmi said in his introduction that
the photos document "the horrors of our times: collapsed
buildings, victims and the desperation of disasters caused by
natural events and by the ferocity of wars and terrorism.
'Terror at home' is well represented by corpses covered in blue
beach towels on the Nice beach and the 'walls of fear' in
Calais, Hungary and the Brenner Pass, as well as the Brexit
shock."
He added that "political events are covered as well:
Erdogan's iron fist in Turkey, the US elections and the
Five-Star Movement (M5S) party's experiment in Italian politics
of placing their bets on young mayors."
For the past 12 years, ANSA has published the annual edition
with the main events of the previous 365 days through images
used in ANSA reports, divided into theme-based sections preceded
by introductory notes.
The news agency president underscored in his preface to the
book that there are also "lighter but unsettling" chapters of a
"post-modern" nature, mentioning ones on "Pokemonmania and
glimpses of globalization that change our lives in a direct
manner: pages on the China-Milan issue, with the football team
Inter ending up in the hands of Beijing financiers; crowds of
tourists, weddings in public squares and fashion shows".
The most emblematic of images portraying links between the
ancient and the modern and hard and "soft" news is one of a nun
hit by the earthquake, sitting on the ground but with a cell
phone in hand to inform others that she had survived. The book
itself, however, is really a look at the divide between the old
and the new.
"Photos straddle the ancient and the modern, immortalizing an
instant. However, taken together and printed in books like in
this case or using some sort of technology, they stabilize facts
that the written word struggles ever more to convey."
The art of communication thus goes through images, and many
of these photos can be considered art in and of itself, despite
having been taken to document the news.
The year coming to an end has been one of exceptional events,
such as the earthquake leaving ruins in its wake and the tragedy
of deaths, but also one of small and large gestures - such as a
young hairdresser amid tents that photos more than written words
can convey the emotional aspect of. This is the case also with
situations that sparked opposite feelings, such as the election
of Donald Trump amid enthusiasm and despair.
Joyful points in the year appearing in the book include the
Rio Olympics and the Paralympic Games, with their colors, the
happy faces of the athletes and their shining medals.
The Milan presentation of the book will be at the Boston
Consulting Group at 6 PM on December 13, followed by a
presentation in Rome on December 14 at 6 PM at UniCredit Palazzo
De Carolis.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED © Copyright ANSA
