"The Fasting Woman": Italians who rebelled against the mafia

EVERY DAY PHOTOGRAPHERS AROUND THE WORLD looking for new ways to tell stories or to capture what we previously did not notice. We choose interesting photo projects and ask their authors what they wanted to say. This week we are publishing the project "The Fasting Woman (Against Mafia)" by Francesco Francavigli - the story of how the Italians joined the fight in the early 90s to fight the Sicilian Mafia. After a series of bloody reprisals against the judges involved in the affairs of Cosa Nostra, 11 women went on a hunger strike and occupied the main square of the city of Palermo with the only requirement - to stop the mafia. Following them, residents of Rome, Milan and other Italian cities began to come out with a similar initiative, which ultimately resulted in a national protest campaign. Twenty-three years after those events, Francesco Francavilla found the protesters and shot their portraits.

The heroines of my project and their act of protest against the bloody massacre that the Sicilian Mafia arranged in the early 1990s is an important stage in the history of Italy and civil society. These are women who went on a hunger strike in the main square of Palermo on the day when the whole country buried Judge Paolo Borsellino, who did a lot to fight the mafia and who died at the hands of Cosa Nostra. These are women who demand only one thing - truth and justice.

I first learned about their deed about a year ago: I searched the archives of newspapers, read articles and looked at photos. This is one of those heartbreaking stories, having learned that it is impossible to remain a mere observer. I wanted to live it myself and did it both as a person and as a photographer. I went in search of women who went on hunger strike in 1992, first in Palermo, and then in Genoa, Rome and Milan. Twenty-three years have passed since they took to the streets to remind everyone: the fight against the mafia is a hard, daily work, a duty that lies on the shoulders not only of the judiciary, but of all of us.

Naturally, I could not shoot the events of those days, but tried to retell them in the portraits of heroines. I shot them in close-up and with a harsh light, I wanted to show their age and how long-term civic activism affected their faces. I wanted the audience to see in the eyes of these women all the pain that they still carry in themselves. In the pictures, their beautiful, noble faces appear from the darkness, as if from nowhere. The whole truth about the criminal activity of the mafia is hidden in the same unknown.

All my life I studied music, played the cello in the orchestra for eight hours a day. Later he studied at the conductor. Now I am 32 and I finally realized that photography is the most effective tool with which to tell stories. As in the theater or music, the main task here is to convey emotions and feelings. I am attracted to photography very much: the opportunity to establish personal contact with the hero and the audience; the power of images, sometimes comparable to civil protest; ability to perpetuate stories. The work of the photographer suggests that he needs to build a special relationship with the subject, and this is one of the tasks that I find very interesting.

The project "The Fasting Woman" is very important for me, it not only reflects my passion for photography, but also tells the story of people who have lived life with dignity. This project resulted in a book and exhibition in the Uffizi Gallery - one of the most famous museums in the world. I am proud that as a photographer I became a member of an important civic initiative. Each photographer has the opportunity to tell stories, our duty is to tell the world about what is important in the language of images, as we can and can. Portraits of my heroines is a real story that teaches us that today more than ever it is necessary to determine what the real goals of civil initiative, law and order are. I sincerely believe in the social mission of photography, as well as in the fact that there is nothing better to know myself and learn the history of my family. In 1992, I was 10 years old, my only memory of this time is the military on the streets of Palermo. My mom's 22-year-old brother was killed because the mafia mistakenly decided that he had spoiled something from their property. With this project I wanted to tell about the horrors of that bloody time in Palermo, Sicily and all of Italy, which we simply have no right to forget.