Butterflies/Chapter4

Il Reportage and Officine Fotografiche Roma are honored to present “Butterflies/ Chapter 4”, the first solo show by Swiss photographer Scott Typaldos, the winner of Il Reportage Photojournalism Award 2016.

Opening 27 September – 7pm via Libetta 1, Roma

Among 282 submitted projects from 38 countries and 25 shortlisted portfolios, the jury composed by Lorenza Bravetta (director C.A.M.E.R.A. Centro Italiano per la Fotografia), Riccardo De Gennaro (director Il Reportage), Stefano De Luigi (VII Agency), Emilio D’Itri (director Officine Forografiche Roma), Tiziana Faraoni (photoeditor L’ Espresso), Andrea Pacella (Leica Camera Italia), Maria Teresa Salvati (editor in chief Slideluck Editorial | director Slideluck Europe) declared the photographic project by Scott Typaldos as the award’s winner for the following reasons:

“For the determination and sensibility through which since 2011 Scott Typaldos works on “Butterflies”, his project about a complex theme such as the mental illness worldwide. “Butterflies / Chapter 4″, that has been awarded by our jury as the winner of Il Reportage Photojournalism award, was shot in a center for mental illness in Indonesia. This work brings to light – thanks to an evocative photographic language – the physical and mental torture, the segregation, the lack of care and total abandonment to which patients are subjected. The image of the butterfly, chosen by the author as symbol of his long-term project, indicates the longing for freedom and the fragility of the soul besieged by fear of these men and these women reduced in chains in our societies”.

The exhibition will consist of twenty-five photographs from the fourth chapter of “Butterflies” that, after the chapters realized in West Africa, Kosovo and Bosnia, has been realized in Indonesia. Through a sensitivity next to the subjects, this intimate work of strong emotional impact brings to light the daily living conditions of mental institution patients, often forced in chains. Images that seem an invitation to empathize with the portrayed women and men, a project that does not want to give answers but rather ask questions.

My point of view has been in constant evolution and has become more and more complex. It’s gotten to the point where I no longer have any certainties about what mental illness is or where it comes from. I could not say that mental illness exists as most societies name them but I have simultaneously witnessed great pain, changes and disconnection for many people. The only thing I might still be ready to assert is that the group, the system and the society are the creators of illnesses. The type of mental illness a country develops is a distorted and coded mirror of its own social and political dysfunction.

Scott Typaldos

Scott Typaldos will attend the opening. The extended portfolio from “Butterflies/ Chapter 4” will be published in Il Reportage n. 28 (October print issue) available at the opening desk. 

Scott Typaldos was born in Lausanne, Switzerland in 1977. He is a member of the Prospekt photo agency. Since 2010, he has been extensively photographing and researching the topic of mental illness through his long term project called “Butterflies”. He has won the Proof award grant in 2012, won the 3rd place of the PGB Photo awards 2012, and the 4th place of the Photocrati fund 2013. In 2013 and 2014, his work  was at the “Head on” Sidney and at the New Delhi photo festival. In 2015 he has won a Sony World Photography Award – 1st Place Contemporary Issue.

Info

Opening: September 27th – 7pm |  via Libetta 1, Roma
September 27th to October 3rd
Monday to Friday : 10 am – 1.30 pm/ 2.30 pm – 7 pm
free entrance