Massimiliano Gatti
Italy
Lampedusa: The Extended Desert
Lampedusa: The Extended Desert
We are used to the sad images of the landings in the island of Lampedusa: dozens of desperate faces, without a name, without an identity. “Migrants”, that’s what they are called. As an indefinite mass, as if nobody counted as an individual. Extended desert is an attempt to give dignity to people through personal objects that were lost during the landing and that the sea has accepted and returned.
A teapot, a piece of cloth, a radio, a box of cous cous, a torch. Small unimportant things, here are loaded with meaning.
‘I portrayed these objects floating in a white limbo that almost devours them, immersed in the undefined, because the fate of their possessors is indefinite: did they survive? Did they arrive at their destination? Did they go home? We only know that passed from Lampedusa, nothing else.’
Every object has a story that evokes a reality, but also opens to different hypothesis: my intent is to build a story, from these fragments of life.
The title is borrowed from a quote by Pierpaolo Pasolini who speaks of “extended desert” as human existence opposed to infinity within. I think this definition fits into the existential condition of these people, who escape from a real and physical desert to cross the sea, another desert. And in the end, they land in a place that does not welcome them, and that becomes an extended desert from a human and social point of view.
Massimiliano Gatti
Massimiliano Gatti has a bachelor degree in Pharmacy and he is graduated in Photography at Cfp R. Bauer in Milan and lives and works between Italy and the Middle East. He has carried out numerous photographic projects about the Middle Eastern territory.
He worked as a photographer at the archaeological mission in Middle East in Qatna, Syria and in Iraqi Kurdistan. His approach is a documentary style and his research spans from the ancient history exploration of ruins and past traces, to the observation of the complexity of contemporary reality. He has also worked on immigration and communities with artistic projects in Scotland and Lampedusa.
He has taken part in many group and solo exhibitions worldwide.
