Today I went to see an exhibition of Letizia Battaglia’s photographs at the Photographers’ Gallery in London.
As I live in Palermo, I have seen her work many times. The subject matter of most of the images makes it difficult to say that they are beautiful, though Battaglia clearly was a good photographer. Even when she did not photograph mafia assassinations, she chose to focus on a certain image of Palermo—the historic city center—despite the fact that at the time, the city was being transformed into something completely new, and new social classes were emerging. It would be interesting to compare her photographs with those of Fabio Sgroi from the same years. When she didn’t photograph the very poor, she photographed the local aristocracy. I feel somewhat indifferent to this kind of imagery.
At least this is what we are usually shown. In this exhibition, there were a handful of photos of what seemed like private moments in her life, which appeared to be images of the middle class or the bourgeoisie (her own class).
What I found more interesting was the information concerning Battaglia’s political and civic activism. For example, the fact that she was a member of the Green Party and the environmental NGO Legambiente.
One of the ephemeras on display was an index card of her photographs on munnizza (garbage), which I would love to see.
Also, she founded a magazine with Franco Zecchin—Grandevù—which seemed very interesting. The magazine’s tagline was Great Things and Shameful Things of the City of Palermo. Many of the volumes seem to have dealt with environmental issues.
Battaglia also founded a small, independent publishing house and the feminist magazine Mezzocielo.
