Sicilian photographer Salvatore Di
Gregorio reveals the evocative hairstyle traditions of West Africa and the
unique beauty and strength of fifteen Nigerian refugees, and the reality of
their life on Italy’s island of hope in a series, Project Mirabella: Tales of
Beauty.
"This project is important for
me personally and to show my community another side to the refugees: they can
be beautiful, approachable, positive."Di Gregorio said.
The number of refugee and migrant
arrivals in the EU surpasses one million in 2015 discounting the thousands
that died en route. In recent months, Italy, Greece and Turkey have come under
scrutiny as the main points of entry for people from Africa and the Middle
East.
The situation is perhaps most felt
in the Mediterranean’s coastal towns, where over 300,000 have made the perilous
crossing to Europe by sea in the last year.
"The topic is high on the
agenda now," says Sicily-born, London-based photographer Salvatore Di
Gregorio.
But this has been in the news for
twenty years in Sicily. To the people, it has always felt like, "this is
your problem, you deal with that."
His home is very much on the
frontline: half of Italy’s migrants currently reside in the island's temporary
centres increasingly met with hostility from locals amid growing economic and
political insecurity.
Di Gregorio’s latest series of
portraits, Project Mirabella: Tales of Beauty, is a reaction to this
climate.
"When you have a crisis like
this and you don’t have a state that helps you to handle it, you are left
abandoned," Di Gregorio says.
"People are really getting
angry. And it’s sad to say, because Sicily was always a welcoming place. We’re
unfortunately losing that attitude because at some point you get tired of these
things. The people don’t want to deal with this situation any more."
"This project is important for
me personally and to show my community another side to the refugees: they can
be beautiful, approachable, positive."
Di Gregorio captures fifteen women,
all of Nigerian descent, living in a women-only camp in Mirabella Imbaccari, a
quiet town of around 5,000 inhabitants. Their right to stay here is being
reviewed by ministers this month. In Project Mirabella, Di Gregorio
invites each woman to create a look to reflect this troubling, transitory time
and their feelings towards their refugee status.
By doing so, he tows the line
between portrait photography and reportage. "I’m mixing the language
of fashion photography with social life and real-people experience," he
says.
"I told them I would like to
create a moment where they can express their emotional state as a
refugee," Di Gregorio says.
"You are living in a particular
time of your life, you won’t be like this forever. I want to see your emotional
take on that by doing something you love; your hair and make-up.”
West Africa, the culture and
tradition of hair styling is an elaborate art that can express everything from
emotions to social status. Looks can communicate different meanings – even down
to the finest details, a single strand of hair, a smudge of eyeliner. The
challenge was to find the right materials – shells were acquired from a nearby
market, make-up from a local artist.
The result is a conceptual yet
searingly intimate depiction of these unique and individual women’s
displacement from their Nigerian heritage, and their troubled integration into
Sicilian culture. Low Cut, an image of a woman called Blessing
Decalov, is one of his favourite images: "Blessing said that, when
she landed in Sicily, she cut all her hair off. That was exactly what I was
looking for. She did that when she got to Sicily to change her life. She wanted
to show the world: ‘I’m here like this."
Another portait is of a woman called
Sweet Chiogie. "She struck me because she called the look Regina,
which means queen. She wanted to feel like a queen, she wanted to be
beautiful," he says. "And this is her crown." For Benin-born
Chiogie, her look is celebratory: "My purpose of making this hair is
because it makes me happy," she told Di Gregorio. "I want people to
know how I feel… I want the world to know that I can do something with my
hands."
The choice to shoot in black and white is unusual, yet it provides a unified sense of strength.
"It was hard for me to choose
black and white because the colour here is so beautiful," admits Di
Gregorio. "I wanted to give them the same opportunity to be as they are.
Using black and white gives them the same equal emotion."
These portraits not only highlight a
topical and contentious subject, but also reveal the moving reality behind the
news story. Di Gregorio’s passionate is clear: "That was something that I
wanted to say – ‘look, refugees are not only what you see in the media,
these are people with pride, with dignity.
"What I found about their
leaving the country was this spirit of adventure. They want to see the world
and they want to get out of where they are. The motivation, the way that they
live, is very much: ‘I want to experience the world.’ These are people that
pull on a rucksack and just go.’"
Project Mirabella may hint at our negative preconceptions of refugee life, but
Di Gregorio’s subjects’ stories are more complex.
These women have taken many risks to
come to Sicily; their tales of beauty are of finding freedom, happiness and a
more promising future.
Source:
British Journal of Photography
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