Bringing a bit of Coney Island to London

This is the first of (hopefully) a series of independent experiments of people that share a passion for performing arts and photography. Our ambition is to create experiences tout-court into performing art, photography and every other medium that is functional to make the audience travel with us, either to real places or to imaginary worlds.
In December we brought a bit of Coney Island to London with photographs by Francesca Tosarelli, mixed and enhanced by various other performances; from of a lost princess on the train, to a fire-breather, an amazing singer and storyteller and an artist performing the 'isolation' (in that order: Mika Hockman, Lewis Davidson, Simone Douani, Francesca Martello).
Francesco Caradonna and I curated and art directed the show/exhibition. We had loads of fun!
A beautiful edit of the night can be viewed here: Vimeo Video: First Stop Coney Island

Maria Teresa Salvati and Francesco Caradonna, by Francesca Tosarelli

The Re-Birth of Coney Island

The journey to Coney Island begins with a twinkle into Francesca Tosarelli's inquisitive mind. While in New York, Francesca heard that the famous Coney Island was re-opening to the public with the new fun fair (Luna Park), so driven by curiosity and the desire to meet these mythical stories in person, she jumped on the train. 
Coney Island is a legendary place by the seaside, just an hour from Manhattan. At the beginning of the last century this place was called "Sodom by the sea" for its fame as the base for back-packers, eccentrics and oddballs. Known for the old "Luna Park" (partially constructed by Italians), Coney Island is an attraction for the weird and wonderful shows it puts on.

Photo by Francesca Tosarelli

This is the place for strong emotions, for humiliations and sublimations, for crashed dreams and touched heavens, for nothing, for everything, for legends and tales, for brothels, carousels and merry-go-round.

Here is home for hybrid cultures: American and Hispanic identities fuse and disguise offering the most stereotyped peaks for each of the two. Sizes, lights, bemusement, noise and rides are the container in which families, kids, old and young people, "contemporary freaks" and working class meet regularly and perform dreams and shows. 
Tolerance, confusion, smiles, comfort, friendliness, music, fire-eaters and foolery are the natural soul. This is the norm. You feel immersed in their world, and joy and amusement pervade your soul too, feeling yourself part of those families.

Photo by Francesca Tosarelli

Coney Island has become once again a cheap meeting place especially for Afro-Americans and Hispanics, but the Island still exudes a peculiar and extraordinary charm, a zone apart, inhabited by those souls which, besides the vibrant energy, can still feel lonely. We are in America, after all.

Photo by Francesca Tosarelli

All prints are 40 x 60 cm + foam board 1cm and are available for sale at £180 inc. VAT, each.

It is possible to view the entire exhibition at Primi Restaurant.

How Laura Hynd learned to Let Go

When I first heard Laura Hynd presenting her work ‘The Letting Go’, I felt a shiver down my spine. I was particularly touched by the sincerity, the naked soul coming through her eyes and the vulnerability of her voice as she talked about relationships with family, friends, lovers, siblings, people and especially herself.

I could see what she was voicing in all the beautiful photos she was presenting.

This is a beautiful story of photography as a form of healing, new discovery and self-awareness.

Laura started by saying “my life had unraveled and I needed to knit it back together… to understand and see with new eyes in order to move on.”

Photo by Laura Hynd

I have been thinking of her work for a while; it was extremely fascinating, together with the story behind it. I could empathize with that story too, so I wanted to discover more. When I met her again we immediately connected and decided to talk further about the whole project.

This is the story of every woman, if not person, who at a certain point in life has doubts. Questions life and events, and wants to discover the reason of many things: why lovers have left, disappointments, things that don’t always go as planned, why people hurt others and why we are not satisfied with what we have and who we are.

Often these questions are left unanswered, but Laura wanted to explore further and decided to embark on this journey of discovery.

The idea behind this project came from a need to explore her notions of photography alongside a desire to explore a much more personal side of her creativity.

’The Letting Go’ stemmed from wanting to focus on perceptions of women, which soon led to others' perceptions of me and my own self-perceptions. The difference is quite extreme.”

“I wanted to really celebrate women, and so started working on my own bodily self esteem, which I should have been celebrating but instead had spent years worrying about.”

“Since beginning this series I have also photographed many men, and a lot of them have photographed me…I can look back at all of the shoots with men and women and identify my role in the relationship... sister, muse, lover, friend, mentor, daughter etc.”

Photo by Laura Hynd

The journey of photographing was as amazing and inspiring as the result: “The feelings of liberation and trust resulted in an overwhelming amount of bonding in a very short time. It cemented many friendships, healed past problems and gave me an extreme amount of faith in people.

‘I wanted to let go of my control of a shoot, so at the beginning of the series, thought it would be fascinating to start each one with the same set up, take a couple of photographs and then allow the sitter/collaborator to do whatever they wanted. There were no rules.”

When you photograph someone, they put a huge amount of trust in you. You can explore, investigate and see their personalities with no filters or preconceptions.

Perception and self-perception are at the centre of this beautiful story. Laura has always been fascinated by ones self-perception in contrast to the way they are perceived by others.

She says she grew up being insecure and unsure of herself. When being photographed (from childhood, right through her twenties), by family and friends she always disliked the results. Now, looking at those old photos, she wonders why.

I look at her and see so much beauty coming from her deep soul and her eyes, and wonder why too. Though at the same time I understand and empathise with that feeling.

“Often, social pressure, upbringing and personal experiences leave us with a warped or unfair view of ourselves” says Hynd. It’s only when you reach a level of maturity or when you really touch the bottom that you feel a push inside that forces you to investigate, do something, clean up and discover that no one has the right to let you down or make you feel insecure.

We all have something amazing inside – or outside - it’s just a matter of baring your soul, seeing with honest eyes and letting go.

Laura’s piece of advice to other people that may feel a connection - even with a little part of this story - is: “take risks, be brave! The worst that can happen is that you’ve learned something new…”

And, in this amazing journey of self-discovery, you might learn that sometimes it’s just a matter of acceptance of faults…and, as Leonard Cohen says:  “there’s a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in”!

A conversation with eclectic artist Tiziana Salvati

I've know her since she's born and we have a blood connection, but I truly believe she's a very interesting and eclectic artist. I interviewed Tiziana Salvati and here it is what we conversed about.

In the past years she's been experimenting and focusing on animations in stop-motion, playing in Naples, Bari and Berlin as VJ.  Here there is a short demo:

Maria Teresa (MT): Your artwork is often dark. What's behind it?
Tiziana (T): Yes it is. And the reason is that it's rooted in the actuality. They reflect the times we live in today, and doubtlessly the human being is living a very difficult condition from many points of view.
Individulity is crashed, cities are not made for people, rather they become some kinds of shopping windows, in which many of us feel isolated and lonely.
The lost of humanity and the discomfort of living in this modern times are very dark.
Plus I live in a context that has many dark sides, Naples. Despite the sun, the mozzarella and the Vesuvio, it's a tough city.

MT: What or who inspires you? From a medium and-or content point of view?
T: I'm inspired by concepts, real life and the willingness to realise them visually, regardless of the medium, which can be photography, painting or multimedia.
I like to experiment. Most of the times I'm inspired by psycoanalysis, for example.
Good part of my work has been inspired by the concept of dualism of the human being and the I, in which two parts of the same personality are confronted.
Dualism in my work is completely gutted, for example through the long exposure photograps, in which I shoot actions and self-portraits in different positions.
The starting point is always introspective. Two figures are put in opposition, two I's that represent the components of the same person, sometimes come out, other times are dormant.
It's always the same body, but different parts of the mind communicate with one onother.
These parts can be introversion and extroversion, for example. We are used to think that we are either introverted or extroverted, so one excludes the other. On the contrary, I believe in the idea of  human beings as dynamic and subject to the time that passes by fluidly, so you can be both at different levels. Carl Jung is the psychoanalyst that I'm inspired by.

"I enjoy me" - Photo by Tiziana Salvati, Matera 2006

MT: what's the project that best reflects this concept of dualism?
T: The project that I've been working on since 2000, it's called "the cube", where I analyse content and container. The container is the body and everything in it, it's the content.
Though my work has changed a lot recently, I moved from long expsure photographs to animation in stop-motion.

MT: what has influenced the passage from these types of medium?
T: Maybe the need of evolving. I've always been interested in scanning the time. The long exposure is also about time and space; in fact, in those 6 seconds, there's something that happens and the body moves in a space that is scanned.

MT: What's your favourite medium? Why?
T: My favourite is painting. I think paint is a very intimate and therapeutic way of expressing what's inside, at least for me.

MT: Your last work it's a self-portrait paint - do you want to tell me something about it?
T: That's an excercise, a moment of therapy with myself, something very intimate.
Again, Carl Jung comes into the frame: he says that what distinguishes artists from nevrotics is the fact that artists are able to let it out, as opposed to nevrotics.
A self-portrait can be mystic process with yourself. Everybody should try it.

MT: What's your dream as an artis?
T: To make video installations in public spaces, streets and urban environments. I'm very interested in working with architects beacuse I love the concept of containers, spaces and urban developement as a way to make those spaces new, different. Cities that re-born and live in a different way, in a more human way, in which people interact with spaces and other people.

Contact: salvatiziana@tiscali.it
More work: http://www.giovaniartisti.it/salvati-tiziana?page=1