Niccolò Antonielli: Sicily

The photographer, Niccolò Antonielli goes past front cover destinations and landscapes to compose a different portrait, a more truthful one, of today's Sicily. By exploring corners of the island that have little to do with tourism, he has crafted a singular reportage of architecture that makes “normality” its main subject.
The purpose of his work is to try and depict what Antonielli believes is the real, current relevance of Sicily. Current relevance that doesn't depend on the time variable but on the use that human beings make of different places. Spaces and buildings that belong to different periods but are all tied together by daily routine are relevant today, as are the people who make these places the backdrop to their everyday lives. 
You might say there is no specific hierarchy to the eyes of Antonielli. Each building, each façade, each street has the task of testifying to the effect of the relationship between space and person. The huge diversity of the photographs contained in this reportage accentuates the complexity of the photographer's message. 
A perfect symmetry of some of the photos stands alongside more composite frames. You get lost in the details of the buttresses of a church, then immediately after in those of a cracked façade in the historical centre. His use of a 16:9 horizontal format, almost like a video representation, is no accident. Indeed, for Antonielli, the photograph becomes that “small moment in the video that passes before our eyes every day”.
In this overlapping of styles, shots and techniques, the architecture remains constant in every image and it always has something to communicate. It doesn't really matter whether it's past, present or future because according to Niccolò Antonielli, this is how Sicily should be interpreted - like lots of frames of different architecture, each with its own story to tell, if you've got the patience to stop and listen. 

Barbara Esposito