UNSPOKEN WORDS

αφασία

get critic texts by GP Serino and others

These are stories of mutism, stories for illiterates.  

The idea of the show comes from different sources. 
More or less voluntarily, all my photos, in 20 years, express a certain impossibility of the human being to communicate with his fellows and, at the limit, with themselves. Not difficulty or uncertainty, just impossibility. 
Secondly comes from the experience of a close friend (the dearer), schizophrenic, he had a medical symptom known as ' alogia ' (missing speech) basically he phoned and stayed silent. Interminable conversations completely mute. There were no words to express what he felt.
It was very distressing. Now, thankfully, he feels better.
But I used the term "aphasia" which is another very strange kind of affection, that I have experienced, that’s impossible to say specific words, or express speech out of significance. But, at the same time, it is the charming axiom by skeptical philosophers, from Pyrrho (300 BC) to Hume ('700) up to Kant and Hegel, which holds that no word, no speech is the thing itself, and, therefore, it’s inappropriate. I.e. we can't say anything about anything.
I think that the "suspension of judgment" is the only sensible attitude towards the world.
The subjects in my photos are often out of speech, their language is not intelligible, i did not understand a word, they mumble. They are idiots, derelicts, drug addicts, of uncertain sex, queers, and mentally insane.
These are stories of mutism, stories for illiterates.   
All this tells me more about the human being then any sensible speech.  

Pigi Bardi

music: Kevin Volans "White Man Sleeps" 2nd mov/4th mov. Kronos Q.et