Politecnico di Milano
Final synthesis design studio
Professors: Mario Piazza, Luca Pitoni, Marco Giancarlo Pea
a.a. 2013/2014
+ The aim of the project was to create a visual book, an artefact that is able to offer an expansion of the meaning of the book, in my case “Il popolo del blues” by Amiri Baraka. Indentified the main themes of the book (the birth of the African-American people and blues), I wondered how it was possible to visually represent the identity of African-American people. Therefore, I thought that the best way to tell the stories of these people was through photography: these pictures had to simultaneously function as a witness of the birth of a new community, and also be a starting point for a long reflection about the atrocities, injustices and discriminations that these people had to suffer. In particular, I focused my work on their faces. The result is a sequence of portraits that show blacks’ physical features. Workers, common people, blues musicians. The pictures chosen are both a biography and a documentation of black people and invite the readers to observe and denounce. In most of the pictures, the afro americans are posing and looking directly into the camera. This look often tells more about a person than his clothes or his background.
Final synthesis design studio
Professors: Mario Piazza, Luca Pitoni, Marco Giancarlo Pea
a.a. 2013/2014
+ The aim of the project was to create a visual book, an artefact that is able to offer an expansion of the meaning of the book, in my case “Il popolo del blues” by Amiri Baraka. Indentified the main themes of the book (the birth of the African-American people and blues), I wondered how it was possible to visually represent the identity of African-American people. Therefore, I thought that the best way to tell the stories of these people was through photography: these pictures had to simultaneously function as a witness of the birth of a new community, and also be a starting point for a long reflection about the atrocities, injustices and discriminations that these people had to suffer. In particular, I focused my work on their faces. The result is a sequence of portraits that show blacks’ physical features. Workers, common people, blues musicians. The pictures chosen are both a biography and a documentation of black people and invite the readers to observe and denounce. In most of the pictures, the afro americans are posing and looking directly into the camera. This look often tells more about a person than his clothes or his background.
