“Photography changes nothing. Violence continues, poverty continues. Children are still being killed in stupid wars.” – Letizia Battaglia
This Autumn, The Photographers’ Gallery presents Letizia Battaglia: Life, Love and Death in Sicily, on show from 9 October 2024 – 23 February 2025.
Letizia Battaglia (1935-2022) was one of Italy’s most important social documentary photographers. She documented everyday life, alongside the brutal reality of the Mafia and their victims in Sicily. Her images are some of the best-known records of life in the shadow of the Mafia. Not only a photographer, she was also a civil rights activist, journalist, publisher, film director, environmentalist, politician, photo museum director, and is a key figure in Sicilian contemporary history.
Letizia Battaglia: Life, Love and Death in Sicily is a powerful overview of Battaglia’s extraordinary photographic work, from 1971 to 2021. Renowned for capturing some of the most poignant, poetic and dramatic moments in Sicilian history, Battaglia’s work extends beyond her homeland. This exhibition showcases a broader spectrum of her photography by intertwining her career with her personal life to emphasise Battaglia’s sensitivity and humanity.
Born in Palermo, Sicily, Battaglia began her career in journalism in 1969. Entirely self- taught, she first took photographs to better sell her writing and gradually discovered her passion for photography. Battaglia’s strong desire for justice, independence and change fuelled her work.
During the 70s and 80s, she was a permanent presence in Palermo, courageously photographing victims of Mafia murders, the fierce in-fighting between rival gangs and their attacks on civil society. She also documented police officers, judges and prominent establishment figures to symbolise the fight against the Mafia, corruption, violence and organised crime. Her work disproved the myth that the Mafia only killed each other and was critical in providing links between corrupt politicians and the Mafiosi.
She received many death threats because of her work. In 2017, she said: “You no longer knew who your friends or enemies were. You left the house in the morning and didn’t know if you would come back in the evening.”
Battaglia mainly photographed in black and white. She also captured daily life: women and children in their neighbourhoods and streets, showing the wealth of the area and at the same time the misery of a city almost abandoned to its fate. Her pictures capture the poverty on the streets as well as the life of the upper classes, religious processions, festivals, funerals and much more.
Describing her photography of families and children living in the neighbourhoods of Palermo, she said “I searched for their dream, to find love, adventures, peace, freedom, beauty, a fantastic future. In them I find myself as a child.”
As the photo director at L’Ora, the daily newspaper in Palermo, she was at almost every major crime scene in the city until shortly before the newspaper was closed in 1990. She took around 600,000 pictures as part of her reportage for the newspaper.
She later described her process: “I was with my bare hands, except for my camera, against them with all their weapons. I took photos of everything. Suddenly I had an archive of blood. An archive of pain, despair, terror, drug-addicted youths, young widows, trials and arrests”.
The exhibition is a diverse and extensive representation of Battaglia’s work. The images of Palermo’s alleyways, districts and neighbourhoods tell different stories of everyday life that sensitively depict personal and interpersonal relationships.
Letizia Battaglia: Life, Love and Death in Sicily invites visitors to explore Battaglia’s artistic journey, revealing the heart and humanity within her powerful work.
The exhibition brings together vintage and new prints, archive materials and contact sheets, books, magazines and film.
Letizia Battaglia: Life, Love and Death in Sicily is curated by Paolo Falcone, in collaboration with the Letizia Battaglia Archive and Fondazione Falcone for the Arts. Supported by the Italian Cultural Institute London.
Letizia Battaglia : Life, Love and Death in Sicily
from 9 October 2024 – 23 February 2025
The Photographers’ Gallery
16–18 Ramillies Street London W1F 7LW
+44(0)20 7087 9300
[email protected]
www.tpg.org.uk
