Personal statement by the photographer Piergiorgio CASOTTI
"It was with all my questions and wonderings that I found myself flying as a modern pioneer about to discover one of the last unexplored lands. I was flying to Kulusuk, the only port of East Greenland. A couple of hours after landing a helicopter would take me to my destination, the town of Tasiilaq, the capital of East Greenland, the last part discovered only in 1894. When one arrives in Greenland it's like crossing an imaginary line. A boundary that marks the end of our world and the beginning of a parallel universe. And suddenly come this line, unexpected, impressive, charming and scary alltogether." (Piergiorgio CASOTTI)
Background information and reception
"A blood-red Beelzebub looks out at us from the gray linen cover. A demon with a big maw that drags us into hell when we open the book. Elvira says: "I try to have fun, but sometimes I can't laugh." And Upaluk Poppel from the Inuit Circumpolar Youth Council is quoted: "If the populations of Canada, Denmark or the USA had comparable suicide rates, they would declare a state of internal emergency. 'Sometimes I cannot smile' is the title of Italian photographer Piergiorgio CASOTTI's magnificent self-published book. He has been there again and again since 2009 - in that supposed hell of hopelessness, weariness, wanderlust, loneliness and alcoholic excesses. This is located in the remote eastern part of Greenland. Specifically in Tasiilaq, a settlement inhabited by 2000 Inuit. The photographer spent a lot of time there getting to know the inhabitants, especially the young people, living with them and ultimately photographing them. He himself describes his project as a journey into the Greenlandic world, where nature, violence, boredom and a strong cultural heritage have prevailed for countless years and are responsible for a high suicide rate. The statistics are bitter: in Greenland, 20 percent of young people between the ages of 15 and 25 try to end their lives every year. This fact is so very sad, but the photos only tell us about it indirectly. The lives of young people are not portrayed as automatically heading for the abyss. The photographer carefully avoids reducing the subject to poverty, isolation and loss of culture alone. On the contrary, the series is extremely multi-perspective, so that sparks of joie de vivre always seem to set fire to a prevailing melancholy.
The photo book 'Sometimes I Cannot Smile' is so good because it not only impresses with its wonderful exterior, but above all with its dramaturgical design and thus achieves a strong narrative impact. At the beginning, the viewer's gaze is drawn to the emptiness and barrenness of the landscape, to glaciers, the sea and brute icebergs, only to very quickly adopt the narrowed perspective within the settlement. A skinned seal, which is shown to us at the beginning, may still be an expected image, but then Piergiorgio CASOTTI depicts an everyday life in which he interweaves the most diverse situations and actions. We mainly see young protagonists who - just like anywhere else - hang out together, play table tennis or cards, watch TV and drink. We get glimpses into the apartments, mostly wooden houses, look into cramped rooms, see uncleared tables, mattresses on the floor, huge stacks of DVDs on the shelves, clothes strewn everywhere, posters of English soccer clubs hanging on the slopes above the bed, some young residents have decorated their walls with doodles and slogans. We see children romping around, jumping on trampolines and climbing on the scaffolding that is actually used to dry fish. We see people hugging each other intimately. And young people celebrating a party. ...And then, somewhere in between, we notice a young man showing us his bare back, on which the scar of a bullet hole is indistinctly visible. These scenes can also be found: people are lying unconscious on beds and mattresses; others have simply laid down on the floor somewhere to sleep off their intoxication. A woman cries, a man rests his exhausted head on the back of a chair. Somewhere in the corner is a rifle. The sun is shining, the summer makes life seem easy. But soon darkness and snow return and bury life beneath them. People fight their way through wild snowstorms on the road. White crosses stick out from under a thick blanket of snow, where the cemetery is actually located. Time passes, the seasons set the rhythm. Ultimately, Casotti tells us the old story of longing and freedom, of love and loss, of life and survival. Time and again, however, the photographer's own story is also reflected, which deals with foreignness and being a stranger. You rarely see his protagonists looking directly into the camera. Their eyes usually remain lowered or turned to the side.
At the end, the photographic perspective opens up again to a long shot. Ice floes float in the water. The mighty nature is presented once again. The photographer is already on his way back. And the devil, where does he come into play? The end credits of the very carefully produced book contain diary entries and drawings that reflect the feelings of the young protagonists and mostly depict their sense of emptiness. Someone has drawn this horned figure in a notebook. Boredom is the name of the demon. (© Peter Lindhorst, in: photonews, 07/2013)
About Italian photographer, Piergiorgio CASOTTI (*1972)
Photo books by as well as with works by Piergiorgio CASOTTI
- Format
- HC (linen bound, no dust jacket, as issued), 17 x 22 cm., 168 pp., 136 bw-ills., Ltd. to 450 copies