G. attends an Institute for people with visual and psycho-physical pathology.
The mental delay has always defined his life and conditioning it for good or for worse.
G. lives his life like a palette of colors: today he waked up in the textures of Blu and Yellow, Red and Green: he’s happy, he smiles, sings, dances and has fun.
Yesterday he waked up in the shades of Grey and Blacks: he was sad, aggressive, violent especially toward himself.
The times he’s in the textures of Grey and Black are less and less, but still there.His life changes day by day and every new experience is a chance to grow up.
His life is in constant motion, an oppressed and compressed happiness that sometimes explodes in all his inner richness.
G. hates being helped, he wants to be free and independent.
He is the one who often helps the blind persons in the Institute in their long daily promenades.
He is the one who helps his mom and dad, both sick.
He is the one who tattooed his arm in memory of his old brother who passed away ten years ago.
He is the who falls in love 10 times a day, watching world and life from his personal and special perspective.
G. is a special boy, but his story is one like many others,
the story of G. is nothing more than one more (extra)ordinary story.
Q&A with Claudio Menna
Photography is…
Photography for me is a state of mind, a continue research of myself, but also a social investigation inside the daily life with the purpose to give voice for those more hidden stories and realities.
Photography and writing…
I believe that photography and writing should ever be connected to themselves as happens in photojournalism. I like writing synopsis of my projects; it’s like add a plus to your essay.
Who left the biggest impression on you?
Who left the biggest impression on me? Certainly the big fathers of photography like all the MAGNUM masters: Scianna, Bresson, Capa, Burri but not only the old masters, also the young talent as Pellegrin, Jacob Aue Sobol as far as Michael Cristopher Brown or Jerome Sessini.
Tell us a little about yourself
I live in Naples, (South Italy). I’m architect but since 8 years i’m totally devoting myself to documentary photography, tring to find the “extraordinary” in the ordinary daily life.
Living in a difficult city as Naples, I learned a lot of things walking in the most popular district of the city, founding several intersting stories I’m collecting into a book called La Ciudad de D10S.
Actually I’m doing a project inside an Institute of kids with visual and psycological deseases where I’m volunteer.
Inside this institute i met the protagonist of the project About a boy. Here I’m collecting all those stories with the purpose giving voice to all these lives and difficult realities.
