Introduction (*)
Photography is not like beauty: it doesn’t exclusively belong to the watcher’s eye. It is multi-dimensional. It reflects images, feelings, it offers vital insights, giving many angles to the careful observer for a travel in (and out of) time, space, social behaviour, cultural and historic trends. It could be considered to be telling a story, but certainly it is the mirror of the author’s soul, which, in the case of Michele Berti, is a harsh realism- where it is easy to mix virtues with vices, here symbolized by the natural yet crude action. His work, which could be defined “An ode to a chicken”, was initiated in the eye of the author in a dark moment of contemplation, yet the product of thought dignified what is great “still life”. It also makes a family ceremony virtuous, made of complicity, becoming almost a metaphor. In fact, Menenio Agrippa admonished hoi polloi (the lowest class of society) in the Aventino hill, reminding them to respect their bodies… thus the importance of “good food”.
(*) by Enrico
Campana journalist and writer
Statement
At the end of 1900, with the end of crop sharing, an era based on homesteads and farming ended. An era when where everything around the figures of the man and housewife, ended as well. The man, besides directing rural works, represented the family in keeping commitments towards the landowner and the farmer, whereas the housewife was busy doing shopping, cleaning, washing, cooking and raising poultry.
Only a few traditions from this past, which lasted for more than 7 centuries in Tuscany, have been handed down from father to son. In valdichiana, for example, you can still find families with their own poultry farm. Especially nowadays, considering the rise in the cost of living, domestic farming can be an important financial help to families. These are traditions, which are quickly disappearing, because of the deep transformations of our society and the rise of the industrialized economy.
Despite that, even now, when we talk about poultry, the best poultry is commonly considered to be “free-range farming”, where animals are free to roam the smallholding as in the past. This is considered to produce a better taste of meat and of course a better life for the poultry than ’battery farming’ (mass production).
If on the one hand mass production contributed to reduced prices, on the other, the unnatural conditions for the poultry necessitate high use of additives in industrial breeding which lead to a “low quality” product.
Maybe, for this reason, anyone who can, should try to raise animals as in the past, breeding them in a natural way, avoiding additives/pharmaceuticals.
The portfolio was produced in a small town in the valdichiana area at the end of September 2007 and published in “Le immagini del Gusto” edited by FIAF (Italian Federation of Photographic Associations) in june 2008. |
