For its fourteenth edition, the National Association of Iconographers (ANI) is showing three photographers chosen from among the favourites at the Visa pour l’Image photojournalism festival in Perpignan in 2016. The winners are being shown at the École de l’Image des Gobelins in Paris from November 6th to December 14th, 2017. The ANI has organised a lecture at the same address on 7th December 2017 from 6.30pm to 8.00pm.
“I would have loved a childhood like the other children who had parents, toys… it was different for me: the people who live on the streets are my family now” (Bruce lee, The Sewer King). When we visited their subterranean home for the first time, in the Bucharest city centre, we didn’t imagine that over time we would become members of their family. The children form the Gara de Nord tribe. Shaped by violence, they learnt that they had to roar to be heard. A great number of them who had grown up without parents and are excluded from society, show all the signs of drug addiction, illness and prison. They sometimes seem to be intentionally hurtling towards death and some of them sadly told me that this was true. Yet they recognise the values of hospitality and sharing. In the search for affection and security, these children offer each other mutual support and gather behind a paternal and authoritarian figure. With some rules, difficult for the “civilised” world to understand, they have founded a community that is the opposite of the society on the surface.
Massimo Branca
Born in 1985, Massimo Branca is an independent documentary photographer and graduate in anthropology, Massimo Branca has also studied the piano, the visual arts and statistics.
Les visas de l’ANI
Lecture on 7th December 2017
6.30pm – 8.00pm
Gobelins L’Ecole de l’Image
73 boulevard Saint Marcel
75013 Paris
France
