For seven years between 2015 and 2021, Ciro Battiloro immersed himself into the daily life of neighbourhoods of Southern Italy : Rione Sanita in Naples, Santa Lucia in Cosenza, and Torre del Greco, where he was born. The delicate atmosphere and powerful black and whites of his photographs show another face of the Mezzogiorno. They are brought together in his first book, Silence is a Gift, published by Chose Commune.
If you stick to its image, Southern Italy is often synonymous with a certain exuberance, a constant bustle, a chaos that is at times singing and colorful or difficult and violent. However, it is through the prism of silence that Italian photographer Ciro Battiloro chose to explore the region: “I did not want the socio-economic context to be at the forefront. By photographing these individuals in their daily lives, I hoped to provide a different vision, one turned towards life, carried by a profound sense of community and imbued with delicacy. The silence of the home, the silence of intimacy… these are things that touch me, as much in terms of beauty as of resistance, a resistance to the things that society imposes on us, whether it be violence or social disparities. »
