Letizia Battaglia siciliana

Since the 1970s Letizia Battaglia has been documenting life in her native Sicily Siciliana narrates a less familiar, more dramatic Sicily: portraits of people, often of little girls, moments of life, flashes of irony. What is striking is the conflict between acceptance and outrage. Groups of onlookers, stoical and beyond shock, have seen it all before. Mourners wracked by sobs seem to be playing out a tragedy that defines every chapter of their lives. But Battaglia refuses to accept this reality. Her lens moves in too close for comfort, capturing a moment that is not meant to be seen, a scene that perhaps will be set back in order, hurriedly, as soon as possible. Some of the pictures have never been published before, including those in which Battaglia presents a series of nudes standing in front of blow-ups of her historic images.