THE VOICE OF THE EARTH

Photo:  Simone Aprile
Reproduced here with kind permission of Simone Aprile

Tonight I would like to introduce you to a new friend of mine, the photographer Simone Aprile and to his colleague the musician and video maker Giuseppe La Rosa.

Simone was born in Siracusa but moved to Milan with his family as a child.  There, he studied photography at the Istituto Riccardo Bauer but his greatest professional influence was Sandro Sciacca.  Simone has worked for several prestigious magazines, including Vogue.  Now he has returned to the South, where he is able to combine his two great loves, photography and Sicily, in the Lab House Studio in Modica. Simone says he feel close to Sicily wherever he is in the world.

Giuseppe La Rosa graduated in Film, Music and Theatre studies from the University of Pisa.  One of his first projects was a television programme called No Parking which was shown on over 50 channels and later he made a video on educational and social policy for Pisa City Council. He now works full-time as a video and documentary maker and his work has won prizes at both Italian and international festivals such as:  Hors Pistes 2010 [Centre Pompidou, Paris]; Sottodiciotto Film Festival 2009 [Turin]; Lampedusa Film Festival [ finalist]; Zone Video 7 [small] and Barilla Short Film Awards [special mention].  In 2009 Giuseppe founded Mojito Film Productions and began working with the Torinese director Daniele Segre.

Over the past few days people lucky enough to be in Modica have been able to see Simone and Giuseppe's exhibition, 'Nzuliddu.  The name is a dialect form of Vincenzo and the show chronicles, in photographs and sound, a year in the  life of 'Nzuliddu the countryman.  This is the story of "a man and his roots", roots that are in danger of being forgotten, for 'Nzuliddu's routines are determined by the land he works and its rhythms. We see him at work and at home, observe his energy and his tiredness, every day from sunrise to sunset. The show is an important memoir of a humanity that is disappearing and is intended as not only a "gift" to the next generation, but as a homage to Modica and the countryside that surrounds it.  It represents, quite simply, say Simone and Giuseppe, the "voice of the earth."