How does the look of a blind person look like? Can the blind show joy, happiness, disappoint, pain, suffering, pity, regret, with the only use of their eyes? The absence of sight can mean also the absence of complicity behind the camera's lens?
We always use the term blind to characterize a person, such as blond, fat,
poor, rich. And maybe, in some way, it is the truth. It doesn't matter if it happens in Africa, Asia, or the old Europe. The fact is, they cannot see the light, the colors, the daily scenes, how awful or gorgeous they can be. The blind are a contrast. It is easier to ignore them, their handicap is hidden, but they do have it. It's not necessary to turn the face to something or someone else, they won't see it.
They seem ?normal?, but they?re not. They have their own world, the same and another than ours, made of different feelings, different images, different colors. And dark.
Stefano De Luigi (Cologne, 1964) has worked as a professional photographer since 1988. He has carried out a reportage in South Africa, on the ?Home-lands?, showing the changes undergone in the country after the end of the apartheid. In 1990 he moved to Paris where the Grand Louvre Museum assign him the portrayal of the transformations of the museum during the Bicentenary celebrations. In the meantime he carried out a vast number of reportages for French and international magazines.
In 1995 De Luigi?s attention is drawn by the world of italian television, a reportage published by the most important magazines worldwide. In 1998 he starts working on italian and French fashion, ?Celebrities?. In 1999, in collaboration with M?dicins Sans Fronti?res, he portrays health conditions of Central Siberian prisons. His photographs have been exhibited at the Festival of Edinburgh (1988), at the Espace Carousel du Louvre (1993) and in a collective exhibition at the Arles Festival in 1996.
In 1997 he was invited to take part at the ?Masterclass of the World Press Photo Foundation?.
In 1999 he has been awarded with the World Press Photo in the ?Arts Stories? category for his work on Fashion World. In the same year the ?Pornoland? project comes to life, In 2000 he received an ?Honorable Mention? from the Leica Oskar Barnack Award and his work was shown at Arles.
In 2001 he is invited to the ?Festival do Imagem? in Braga, with an exhibition about Russian poverty. In 2002 ?Celebrities? becomes a solo exhibition at the Savignano International festival.
?Pornoland? project, a journey through the world porn industry, became a book published in Italy (Contrasto), France (Le Martini?re), United Kingdom (Thames and Hudson) Germany (Knessebeck) and U.S.A. On Spring 2004, ?Pornoland? which text was written by Martin Amis, was presented with an exhibition in Paris, at the REA gallery. In March 2005 the ?Pornoland? exhibition was also held in Rome and in Naples. The same exhibition has been invited to the ?Transphotographic Festival 2007? in Lille, curated by Gabriel Bauret.
Pornoland won ?Marco Bastianelli Price? in 2005. These years among the collective exhibition there were ?Eurogeneration? in Palazzo Reale in Milan and in Museo in Trastevere in Rome, ?Italian Photojournalism? at the Italian Photography Foundation in Turin and ?Beijing In&Out?, Triennale Bovisa, Milan.
At the end of 2004, Stefano De Luigi began the collaboration with Christian Blind Mission Italia to carry out a project about blindness worlwide. The work ?Blindess? is due to become a book and has received the support of the OMS Vision 2020 and also received the W. E. Smith Fellowship Grant 2007.
In novembre 2006 he started a new project dedicated to the World Cinema, featured for countries, which intend to narrate the alternative cinematographic scene, far from the Hollywood commercialism. He already completed the four first countries: China, Russia, Iran and Argentina.
Next countries for Cinema Mundi: Nigeria, South Korea and Bollywood (India).
Stefano De Luigi joined Contrasto in 1996.
