Michele Vangelista is an Italian photographer based between the province of Venice and that of Vicenza. In his photographic projects he often relies on the art of writing collaborating with Sandro Frizziero, who takes care of the production of texts.
About ‘Bassamarea’:
«Every twelve hours we sit on the shore waiting for the tide to go out and the lagoon to reveal its false depth; we always hope to find at the bottom some truth or at least something smart to say to impress girls, but what we get is only the triviality of an everyday life that anyway we don’t understand. Here starts our commitment to release at least one post per week, chronicles from the bottom of the sea to escape the feeling of being completely useless.If you too like to sit on the shore of reality and are not bothered by the smell of the seaweed the tide leaves behind, stare at the surface of water: nothing is going to happen but at the end it’s all there».
The projects arises when Michele Vangelista’s photography meets Sandro Frizziero’s pen, joint together aiming to reduce their “fever of feeling” and shaping perception and emotions otherwise destined to be dragged away by the wave of conversations. Pointing it out might be useless: any place is everywhere and that’s why their eyes look at the Venetian lagoon as they were looking elsewhere.
M.V./S.F.
You don’t like this place, I know. I could have chosen thousands of other destinations, but eventually I made you follow me in here; it’s a place like many others: (indeed, it’s) an ordinary place. Why? It’s obvious to me: did you want a special spot? Maybe a belvedere whence taking pictures of breathtaking sunsets? Or a picturesque village in front of the sea, full of small restaurants and their frozen seafood? Or maybe a silent and lonely hill where you could have pretended to be moved by the night sky? How can you not realize the falsity of your wishes?
I haven’t taken you to a special place because you’re not special. Nobody is special.
You see the world only through your eyes, you feel it’s all about you, you expect the best from life. But to me the only way to be truth is to offer you this ordinary landscape, made of scraped walls, twisted aerials, blackened chimneys and bikes chained to bent road signs. There won’t be any mercy: our journey will be as full of inconveniences as any other journey: missed connections, crowded buses, delays, misunderstandings, bad weather.
You’re disappointed, I know. But what can I do? How can I be responsible of all the waste that surrounds us – would you consider me responsible of that? We couldn’t have been to another place, believe me. Now we have to go with the flow and dance in a cheerful roundabout. We have to strive for unawareness, hand in hand as two young lovers whose eternal burning love will die out within an hour.
Special thanks for the translation in English to Luigi Pinton and Enrico Donadello
