In the heart of Sulawesi, Indonesia, I found myself capturing the lush beauty of the forest through my lens. Umar suggested avoiding the denser areas as I stepped deeper into the jungle. “There may be snakes,” he warned. Stories of reticulated pythons eating cows and even humans had circulated, much to my surprise. I had always considered the python a slow creature, and I couldn’t imagine being attacked by one of them. On the contrary, I wondered how it might survive with less and less forest to roam. Of course, I hadn’t seen any pythons myself.
Read MoreCRITICAL MINERALS - DRC
The third leg of the 'Critical Minerals' project took me to the Democratic Republic of Congo to document the condition and impact of the mining of Copper and Cobalt, essential for the green energy transition.
The environmental and human conditions of mining have been widely reported, and the mainstream narrative faithfully describes the devastating working conditions, the quasi-slave-like exploitation and the problematic health, environmental and economic conditions that men, women, and often children are subjected to, directly or indirectly involved in mining. […]
Read MoreCritical Minerals - Chile
I have never seen such iridescent light as radiated in the sky above San Pedro de Atacama at sunset.
It is an immense lapse of time ruled by the sun and the dryness of the air at an altitude of three thousand metres. Between 6 p.m. and 9 p.m., the rocks and the surrounding desert are irradiated with shades of yellow, indigo, violet, green, and blue that my camera refuses to register.
Read MoreExplaining myself "Sinomocene"
"Sinomocene" is a project that takes its cue from the documentation of the Chinese initiative known as "Belt and Road" or "New Silk Road" to investigate more widely on issues of new forms of colonialism, globalization, and the relation between Powers and individuals. The work focuses on the social and environmental impact of large capital movements linked to geopolitical strategies at a global and local level. Like many other powers in history, as soon as China amassed enough economic wealth at home, it began projecting its influence overseas.
Read MoreThe April Theses #1
In March 1917 Vladimir Ilych Ulyanov (LENIN) was leaving exiled and in poverty in Zurich. Within eight months he assumed the leadership on 16000000 people occupying one-sixth of inhabited surface of the world. On April 9th 1917, with the support of German authorities, at that time in war with Russia, he travelled back to his own country on a train across Germany, Sweden and Finland to reach Finland Station in St. Petersburg on April 16th. By the time he was back in St Petersburg he wrote a ten points program known as “The April Theses”.
Lenin's Statue at "RGASPI" - Moscow. ©Davide Monteleone.
Part of the documents concerning Lenin's life between March 27th and April 22nd 1917 which I reviewed to research about the trip and "The April Theses".
100 year later I created a chronology of that 2 weeks of Lenin’s life just before the events that changed Russia and the entire world. In search of the original draft of “The April Theses” I recreated and sometime reacted on a real non-invented trip Lenin’s epic journey on the base of archival documents found it at the R.G.A.S.P.I (Political History Russian State Archive of Political History ) and historical books including “To Finland Station” by Edmund Wilson and “The sealed train” by Michael Pearson.
In the Russian East #2
On my way back from China to Moscow I stopped a couple of days in Chita (Russia) and around. I dedicated the day before my flight to Moscow to continue my project " In the Russian Est", a specular homage to "In the America West" by master of photography and portraiture Richard Avedon.
Read MoreThe last emperor
Manzhouli, China 2015. ©Davide Monteleone
On August 18, 1945, Pu Yi, China’s Last Emperor, who by that time was reduced to being the emperor of the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo, renounced his throne and prepared to flee northeastern China along with the defeated Japanese Army. Bernardo Bertolucci’s Academy —— film, ‘The Last Emperor’ depicted the moment when Soviet troops seized a Manchurian airport and stopped Pu Yi and his royal entourage from escaping to Korea. They were taken to the Soviet Union to meet an uncertain fate.
Pu Yi spent five years as a prisoner of war in the Soviet Union. In an autobiography that was published in the 1960s, he described his life in Chita and Khabarovsk.
I spent the last 3 weeks traveling in Northern Est China, close to the border between Russia and China searching for historical and contemporary relations between the two countries. I met ethnic Russian Chinese, mixed couples, woodcutter, traders, an orthodox Chinese priest and visited surreal amusement parks and "sanatorium".
Tomorrow I will fly back to Moscow exactly from Chita. I'll have numerous days of editing back home, but updates and stories will come soon.
One of...
From the series "One of..." - Liliana Uiao, China. One of 18523. ©Davide Monteleone.
From the series "One of..." - Jekaterina Pressmann, Estonia. One of 47. ©Davide Monteleone.
From the series "One of..." - Niang Abdou, Senegal. One of 1731 ©Davide Monteleone.
Few weeks ago I found this article by Roman historian Ursula Rothe in Newsweek where she describe the policy on immigration at the time of the Roman Empire as a model that could be applied nowadays to deal and reconsider the migration's issue in Europe.
Italy hosts officially 3.874.726 foreign citizens and is properly considered one of the main gate to Europe because of its geographical position. I also just recently discovered Rome accomodate 181 different foreign community ( almost the entire nationalities of the word) living in the city. Last month I decided I want to try to make one portrait for each nationality inviting them to my studio in Rome.
"My ancestors…encourage me to govern by the same policy of transferring to this city all conspicuous merit, wherever found. And indeed I know, as facts, that the Julii came from Alba, the Coruncanii from Camerium, the Porcii from Tusculum, and not to inquire too minutely into the past, that new members have been brought into the Senate from Etruria and Lucania and the whole of Italy, that Italy itself was at last extended to the Alps, to the end that not only single persons but entire countries and tribes might be united under our name.
We had unshaken peace at home; we prospered in all our foreign relations, in the days when Italy beyond the Po was admitted to share our citizenship…. Are we sorry that the Balbi came to us from Spain, and other men not less illustrious from Narbon Gaul? Their descendants are still among us, and do not yield to us in patriotism.
Everything, Senators, which we now hold to be of the highest antiquity, was once new."
Emperor Claudius 41 to 54 AD
IF YOU WANT TO HELP ME TO COMPLETE THIS PROJECT AND YOU ARE OR YOU KNOW FOREIGNERS LIVING IN ROME PLEASE WRITE TO: STUDIO@DAVIDEMONTELEONE.COM TO FIX AN APPOINTMENT TO DO THE PORTRAIT.
Studies on Color
Just pointed my camera to the window in my hotel room:
Imperium - Chapter 1/a: "Rendering the empire's capital"
From The Guardian - May 2015: "In 2012, as the Russian government announced the formation of a new “greater Moscow”, Marat Khusnullin, the deputy mayor, headed up an international competition that invited plans for the newly expanded city region. There is talk of a grand urban vision: new jobs, homes, infrastructure and city-wide improvements. In the meantime, Moscow is already transforming. From plans for Zaryadye Park – Moscow’s first new park in 50 years – to burgeoning creative industries, rapid gentrification and a food revolution, the fabric of the city is being reworked. Plans involve pedestrianised embankments along a transformed riverfront, high-speed water transport and brand-new cycling infrastructure. But how much has life really changed for Moscow’s residents? Has the transformation been for the benefit of everyone or just a select few? And what of the future of this new Moscow?"
Rendering Moscow - imperium, ©Davide Monteleone, 2015
The day after
Note from "Time second-hand" by Svetlana Aleksievich" : "Mio figlio...mia madre...io...viviamo in paesi diversi, anche se si chiamano tutti Russia. Il nostro legame ha qualcosa di assurdo. Ci sentiamo tutti traditi".
Lenin's Mausoleum, Red Square, the day after the parade. ©Davide Monteleone 2015.
Parks and Parade...
I found this interesting series of article about parks in Moscow. There is an interesting sentence in the introduction that may be worth to explore with pictures:
"Parks in Moscow reflect the influence of historic ideas on urban landscapes. There are elements of feudalism, socialism, and capitalism. There is monarchy, anarchy, religion, modernism, and post-modernism."
In the mean time, yesterday I wanted to see it from the "citizen" perspective and not from the VIP tribune on the Red Square. I wanted to have a picture from Sofiyaskaya nabereshnaya, the river side in front of the Kremlin, but, unfortunately, the street was closed for "security" reason. This is the best I got:
Moscow, 2015 ©Davide Monteleone
"In the Russian East"
IMPERIUM, Atlas and Chronology.
“Russia opened its twentieth-century history with the Revolution of 1905 and is closing it with the revolution that resulted in the breakup of the USSR in 1991 […] History in this country is an active volcano, continually churning, and there is no sign of its wanting to calm down, to be dormant.”
Imperium, Ryszard Kapuscinski
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