In her recent project Resonances (2014) Talini explores the autonomy of photographic language in new conditions. All photographic images take form in the relationship between time, light and subject matter.
In these images this happens without using a traditional subject. In this case picture frames, mirrors or other wall hangings are missing, only their traces in subtle light and shadow remain on the walls of an old Florentine apartment.
These images are similar to photographs of photographs, also known as Rayograms, where light radiation plays a central role and is intended to be a field of energy capable of impressing the form of spaces created by the shape of things.
From the Absence of the traditional subject emerges a new subject made of ambiguous surfaces and space.
The images contain both bidimentional and tridimentional qualities that create a type of photographic phenomenal transparency. This space is not exclusively an optical space: every image carries alternate meanings that invite the viewer to observe through different frames of mind one’s imagination, memory and identity.
Nel recente progetto Risonanze (2014) Talini torna a parlare dell’autonomia del linguaggio fotografico con una nuova modalità. In questa serie di scatti il soggetto dell’immagine è l’espressione visibile di un lentissimo processo fotografico ormai giunto al termine. Come le immagini prendono forma in relazione a costanti rapporti fra tempo, luce e soggetto, gli spazi ritratti sono l’indice di un’azione invisibile nel suo farsi dove tutto è assente: energie sprigionate lentamente e assimilate nel corso di una vita dalle pareti di uno spazio ormai vuoto. Fotografie di fotografie (o rayogrammi) dove il ruolo centrale è giocato dalla radiazione luminosa intesa come un campo energetico capace di impressionare gli spazi con le forme delle cose. Come nel Rumore delle stagioni anche qui ritorna la presenza di una superfice sensibile, ma in questo caso l’artista si fa apparentemente da parte lasciando lavorare l’occhio meccanico in grado di superare le capacità visive dell’uomo. Emerge una visione nitida e distinta contrapposta all’opacità del lavoro sulle polaroid dove Talini interveniva aggiungendo o togliendo; qui le immagini sono trasparenti, rivelano una pienezza di dettagli sfuggiti allo sguardo ma non all’inconscio ottico dello strumento fotografico. Lo spazio si rende disponibile alla presenza della macchina fotografica nel momento più disatteso, quando oramai non c’è più niente da vedere. Da un presunto vuoto, osservato fotograficamente, emergono inaspettate incongruenze percettive, superfici mistificate e spazi prospettici. Bidimensionalità e tridimensionalità convergono in una rappresentazione intermedia dove trova conferma l’ambiguità della visione. Un inganno a cui la fotografia ci ha abituato, ma che costantemente lascia una sensazione di meraviglia. Questo luogo non è però solo uno spazio ottico: ogni scatto porta con sé un titolo carico di significato che induce a osservare dentro e fuori le diverse cornici attivando un meccanismo di immaginazione, ricordo e immedesimazione. – Martino Margheri
Interview with photographer, Stefania Talini by Annalisa Rossi
Stefania Talini’s photography appears to us as a powerful instrument able to both reveal and interpret life. It’s almost too obvious to mention Antonioni’s famous series “Blow Up,” and the parallel worlds that intertwine dramatically in the lens of the photographer. Similarly, in RESONANCES, we see an interpretation of reality that comes solely through the eye of the camera; and it is the camera that speaks of our duplicitous and ambiguous nature which oscillates back and forth, like a pendulum, between the imaginary and the real.
1. How did you come up with the idea for Resonances?
TALINI: The series Resonances came from a very personal experience that happened at a pivotal moment in my life: the death of my mother. We know that our existence is made up of periods of “more” and of “less,” of fulfillment and emptiness, of acquisitions and losses, of a relentless oscillation from one paradox to another. It’s a cycle from which we can’t escape, even though we all try to protect ourselves as much as possible.
I armed myself with a camera, my instrument of choice for curbing the full impact of pain and suffering.
After my mother’s death, I began to empty my family’s apartment, where we had lived for many years; meanwhile, I also started to take pictures of the furnishings, the interior, the books, old games, and children’s toys. Through the lens of my camera I began to investigate my past, the past of my mother and that of my family.
To me, every shot conjured up memories. Choosing the objects, the lighting, the framing – all of these things corresponded to my need to review my entire life, to analyze it, to put it in order like books on a shelf.
2. So photography was a sort of existential therapy for you – the freeze-frame of a life running by inexorably. Essentially, photography allowed you to enter into a world beyond.
T: In each shot I wanted to keep some element that gave a sense of the three-dimensionality of the place – a nail, a crack in the wall, a shadow – so that the end result was a work of minimalism, ambiguous enough to be an almost abstract design, yet still retaining the essential characteristics of light, texture, and depth required of photography.
Surprisingly, these traces were revealed (or better, unveiled themselves) to the naked eye largely through the photographic process. Signs so delicate and subtle that I didn’t even notice them at the time of the shooting have emerged in post-production, like ectoplasms that challenge two-dimensionality, time, and life.
3. You mean to say that photography has revelatory powers, on the one hand hiding certain elements in order to, on the other hand, reveal others?
T: Yes, I’m sure of it. The medium of photography spoke to me more than I thought it would, once again revealing the invisible. It was almost as if the camera lens could see things with its own eyes, independent of mine, and it showed me that even though things were absent or missing, in truth they were still there, in a new form. And I was able to see this in its profoundest essence.
English translation by Lauren Johnson
